Never Letting You Go
by rachie.ree08794
Summary: Hikari and Kira are twins, who've been in foster care since they were 8. When they return to Konoha, chaos ensues, and Hikari and Kira have no idea what to do. SasuxOC and DeixOC, Suckish Summary, i know XP FORMERLY KNOWN AS UNTITLED
1. Prologue

**Untitled **

**Prologue**

_Fatal Crash Kills Two! Twins Left Orphaned:_

_Mister Yuuki Kobayashi, and his wife, Mizuko Kobayashi, met an untimely death today, when travelling home from a local restaurant after a family dinner. Fortunately, their twin son and daughter, Kira and Hikari Kobayashi, were still alive when emergency services arrived and rushed the family to Konoha General Hospital. The family were rushed into Emergency Care, where Yuuki and his wife died shortly after their arrival. _

_Young Hikari Kobayashi, seven years old, was immediately rushed into an operating room to receive the care she needed to recover from broken and dislocated ribs, a collapsed lung, and some internal bleeding. Her younger twin, Kira Kobayashi, was also treated for broken limbs, and is currently under observation due to a concussion. Hikari Kobayashi has been moved from emergency care and into the Intensive Care Unit, and is expected to make a full recovery, along with her younger twin brother. Once they have fully recovered, they will be placed into the care of the foster system, as the two seven year old children have no other living relatives.._

That was ten years ago..._._

_**Author's Note: Ooh, new story! Get excited :D. Anyway, this new story of mine needs a title, so I'll be holding a contest of sorts. If anybody has any ideas for what I should call this story, review or PM me to let me know what you have in mind :) HollyEmpire00 also suggested a forum, so keep an eye out for that too :)**_

_**Kudos!**_


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One – Return to Konoha**

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel of my dark green ford Festiva, Tim McGraw belting out _Felt Good On My Lips _through the radio, courtesy of my iPod and car cord for it. I glanced in my rear view mirror to see that my brother was following behind me in his black Jeep. I allowed myself a small half smile, despite the circumstances.

I returned the direction of my leaf green eyes to the highway ahead of me, mulling over the past ten years of my life, particularly the day that the life of myself, and my twin brother, Kira, went downhill. What happened that day ten years ago changed both of us, in different ways. Kira withdrew for a while, even though he had escaped essentially with fewer injuries than me. I'd found out after waking up in the hospital that I'd been in a medically induced coma for six weeks, and that once my brother was able to, he never left my side until I woke up. We were looked after by the hospital for another month, before we were turned over to the foster system. Over the next ten years, we'd lived in the Wind State, the Earth State, The Waterfall State, the Star State, and the Greens State.

Now, we were returning to the state and city we were born in. I wasn't sure how Kira was feeling about going back "home", but my feelings were very mixed about the situation. Over the last ten years, the main reason we had been moving from state to state was due to the fact that we were normally adopted by sweet, little, lonely old ladies who wanted some semi-permanent company with them in their homes. Once they got too ill, or old to look after us, however, a social worker would intervene, and we'd be moved on to somebody else. I learned the hard way over the years not to get my hopes too high, because normally, as soon as we'd settled into a new place, we were being moved on again. My brother and i have been living out of our suitcase for the past several years, and the worst part about it was that we had known that our parents had loved us dearly, just as we had loved them. The loss of that love and security had hit us heavily, but I think it had effected Kira more than me. After the death of our parents, we leaned heavily on each other. The only real family we had left was each other.

I removed one hand from the steering wheel to gently push some locks of my brown hair and fringe out of my eyes. I glanced over to a road sign a few hundred meters in front of me declaring that we were now a hundred and fifty kilometres away from Konoha city, the same sign also declared that there was a rest stop about twenty kilometres ahead. I glanced then at my watch to see that it was about lunch time. Once I caught sight of the rest stop, I flicked my signal light on and slowed down, turning off the highway and into the rest stop, pulling up next to a covered picnic bench. I turned my car off, got out, and stretched my arms over my head as Kira pulled his car up behind mine. He groaned as he got out of his car, while i went to the back seat of mine and pulled out the cooler bag with our lunch in it.

I grinned over at my brother as i wandered over to the picnic table, pulling out two glad wrapped ham and cheese sandwiches and two bottles of water, sliding into one of the benches. Kira wandered over after a minute and sat down across from me, taking the proffered sandwich and water.

"Thanks Sis." He murmured, carefully unwrapping the sandwich to use the plastic like a plate. I smiled at him and did the same, picking up half the sandwich and biting into it gratefully.

"We aren't too far away now." I commented, turning my gaze back to the highway. My brother hummed in agreement around a mouthful of sandwich. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye.

"How are you feeling? About going back to our hometown, I mean." I asked Kira. He shrugged in return and remained silent for a little while, before giving a more elaborate answer.

"I'm not sure how I feel about going back, to be honest, Sis. I suppose I'm excited and scared at the same time. I mean, we left friends behind there, friends we've known since we were rug rats, and they probably won't even remember us, let alone what happened to us." He sighed, shaking his head minutely, before looking up and meeting my green eyes with his dove grey ones. "I want to go back there, but at the same time, I'm really scared about going back there." I nodded, offering him an empathetic smile, before turning my gaze to the highway again.

"i wonder how much it's changed, since we were there last." I murmured. My brother hummed in answer again, nodding his head. We finished the rest of our lunch in silence and rested for a little while longer before going back to our cars and continuing on to Konoha city.

I pulled over into the visitor car park of Konoha State High School, which was where our social worker had told us to meet our foster carer. I slid out of my car and locked it behind me as Kira sidled over to me, eyeing the high school, his face not giving away what he might be feeling. I looked towards the administration building, reaching over to give my brother's hand a quick, reassuring squeeze, before we started walking towards the building.

My brother pushed and held the door open as I followed him inside. I looked toward the front desk to see a young woman with dark hair and eyes typing away at a keyboard. Kira stayed by the door while I stepped up to the front desk, clearing my throat to gain the lady's attention. She looked up, blinked, and smiled amicably.

"Hi there. How can I help you?" She asked, pulling her hands away from the keyboard. I smiled in return, a little nervously.

"Um, I'm Hikari Kobayashi," I gestured to the door, where my brother stood, leaning against the wall next to it, "and this is my brother, Kira. We were adopted by, uh-" I pulled a crumpled piece of note paper from my pocket and unfolded it, glancing at the name I had written down during a phone call from our social worker. "Kurenai Yuuhi. We've just arrived and were told to meet her here at the school." The desk lady gasped, and nodded vigorously. I glanced at her name tag and quickly found out that her name was Shizune. Shizune twirled around in her spinning office chair and stood, walking over to a file cabinet, pulling out two folders before walking back over to the desk, handing the folders to me.

"Kurenai enrolled you as students here, so I'll give you guys your schedules now. You start officially tomorrow, but feel free to wander around to get a feel of things and where your classes are going to be. Kurenai is the music teacher here. She has a class at the moment, but feel free to head to the main music room and introduce yourselves." I nodded and smiled, before giving her a look of confusion.

"Um, do you have a map or something? To make finding out where everything is a bit easier." Shizune nodded and handed me a pamphlet about the school, which conveniently had a map on the back of it. I looked at the map, found the music building from where we were, and smiled up at Shizune again.

"Thanks. Are there any textbooks we need to buy?" Shizune shook her head negatively.

"No, Kurenai's already taken care of hiring your text books and bought any workbooks you might need. She's put them into your lockers already as well, so you won't have to worry about carrying them all with you tomorrow morning." I sighed in relief, silently thanking our new foster mum for taking care of things already.

"Alright, thanks for your help, Miss Shizune, we're going to go and meet our foster mum now." Shizune nodded and smiled, waving us off as we left the office and I led my brother towards the music building. I looked over at my brother as we walked through the currently empty halls, getting curious looks from some of the students, until we found the main music room, which appeared to currently have a class about our age in the room.

Kira knocked on the open door, and both of us hovered at the doorway uncertainly as a pretty young woman with long, dark, curly hair and scarlet eyes turned to look at us.

"Yes?" She questioned, a soft smile adorning her face. I swallowed, and stepped into the room a little, as about twenty or so pairs of eyes turned to look at Kira and I.

"Um, you're Kurenai Yuuhi, right?" She nodded. I turned for a moment and pulled Kira into the room with me.

"We're the Kobayashi twins, um, you agreed to foster us?"

That's when the whispers started.

_**Author's Note: Wow! I actually meant to get this chapter posted today, and I'm so glad I got it in on time! Anyway, like I mentioned at the end of the prologue, THIS STORY NEEDS A NAME! I've only had a review from ONE PERSON suggesting a name for the story, when i know for a fact that EIGHTEEN people read the prologue...bottom line, I was hoping for more than one review when I noticed eighteen people had read what I've written so far. So, I'd like to see five more reviews before chapter two will be released, but I'm starting to think that's getting my hopes too high.**_

_**This chapter is un-beta-ed. I sent it to HollyEmpire00 for a second opinion, but have yet to hear back from her, SO, if i get those five reviews, expect a betaed chapter one AND chapter two. If i don't get those reviews, there won't be an update, simple as that :P **_

_**If anybody's wondering, yes, i am feeling mean today.**_

_**Kudos!**_


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two – Whispers**

"_Oh my gosh, _they'reorphans!_"_

"_You think their parents didn't want them?"_

"_Well, it's no wonder they have no sense of fashion."_

I stiffened. They really had no clue, at all. That didn't make it hurt any less though. I spared a glare for a particular group of girls sitting right up the front of the classroom, before looking back at Kurenai, who offered both of us a warm, welcoming smile.

"Well, I'm happy you two got here safely. Do you want to take a seat for a while? This is my last class today. I have a little work to do afterwards, but if you want to go home and settle in, I can give you directions." Kira and I nodded in agreement.

"That'd be good, thanks." I murmured. Kurenai nodded and looked back to her still gossiping class. She was silent for a moment, before turning back to face us.

"Well, I don't have two seats free next to each other, you won't mind sitting separately?" Kira and I shook our heads negatively, and Kurenai nodded. "Alright, Kira, you can sit over next to Naruto. Naruto, can you raise your hand?" An ecstatic looking blonde raised his hand, his cerulean gaze locked curiously on us. Kira stayed by me a moment longer, before wandering over to his assigned seat for the afternoon. Kurenai looked around some more, before turning to look at me. "Hikari, you can sit between Hinata and Sasuke. Can the two of you raise your hands?" I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the girls I had glared at before were now giving me dirty looks, as I turned my gaze to two people, a boy and a girl, both with black hair. The girl sported the most gorgeous pair of eyes I'd ever seen – pale, pale lavender in colour – while the boy had eyes as dark as his hair. I slowly made my way over to them, slipping into the free seat between them. The girl turned to look at me shyly, a small, embarrassed blush on her cheeks.

"H-Hi, I'm H-Hinata Hyuuga. It's n-nice to m-meet you." I offered her a warm smile.

"Nice to meet you Hinata, I'm Hikari Kobayashi." Hinata's eyes went wide.

"Kobayashi? I remember going to pre-school with you and your brother!" She exclaimed in a murmur. Neither of us noticed that we had gained the attention of the boy next to us. Hinata's gaze sobered, became a little sympathetic. "W-What happened? You b-both d-disappeared before w-we started y-year one." I sighed, looking at my desk, rather than at Hinata for the moment.

"It's not really...something Kira and I like to talk about." I murmured, looking back up at Hinata, who mumbled a small _'oh'_. She nodded, and turned her gaze back to the front of the room to pay attention to the lesson. I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning back into my chair, as a slightly awkward silence settled between Hinata and me. I felt kinda bad for not saying anything; but I didn't really know how to explain to someone I just met how we both ended up as orphans. I didn't really want to explain, to be honest. I sighed to myself, looking up and over towards my brother, who was diagonally in front of me by a few seats, talking quietly to Naruto. I smiled slightly, glad that Kira'd made a new friend, since it was normally hard for him to be friends with guys our age.

When class was over, Kira and I hung back to talk with our new foster mum. She was sitting at her desk, looking over some papers, while Kira and I leaned against the desks in the front row. This silence was mostly comfortable, but still a little awkward, since we only knew our foster mum's name, and that she taught music here, but not much else. After a few more minutes of shuffling papers, she looked up at us and smiled softly.

"Well, we'd better get home, huh?" I couldn't help but smile back, nodding in agreement. Kira shrugged, but a small smile had also made its way to his face. Kurenai stood, grabbing a bag from the floor behind her desk, and a set of keys from her desk drawer. We waited for her to lock up the main music room, instrument room, and choir room before we headed out of the building to the car parks.

"So, are you guys over in the guest car park?" We both nodded in answer, and Kurenai thought for a moment.

"Alright, do you guys mind waiting by your cars while I go and get mine? I'll drive around to the guest parking lot and the two of you can follow me home, sound good?" I nodded and hummed my agreement, Kira shrugged again. She smiled and hurried over to the teacher's parking area, while Kira and I went back to our cars.

I sighed to myself and leaned against the hood of my car, looking out across the school grounds as a whole heap of kids my age and younger piled out of the buildings, disappearing to their cars and to buses, and in some rare cases, to their bikes. There were also the lucky few who just walked off along the pathways to wherever they lived. I sat there people watching until a red Mazda two pulled up beside me. The electronic passenger window rolled down to reveal Kurenai, who smiled at me.

"Ready to go?" I nodded, sliding from the front of my car and into the front seat. I followed Kurenai's little red car easily, and glanced into the rear view mirrors to make sure Kira was right behind me as well. After driving for about five minutes, Kurenai flicked her left blinker on and turned into a nice looking, two storey brick house. It had a well-kept front lawn and garden, and a large window that looked like it might have a window seat. I decided to park my car on the front curb, since Kurenai would probably have to leave the house before us tomorrow morning. Kira pulled up behind me on the curb.

I checked my rear view mirror to make sure there were no cars coming and quickly hopped out of my car, locking the front door behind me, before going around to the boot and pulling out the few bags of belongings I had with me, which were mostly clothes, with a few books, CDs, DVDs, and a laptop, all of which I had worked hard to save up for. I locked my car up and made my way over to Kurenai, who was waiting at the front door for us, with my bags in hand. She opened the door for me and offered to take some of my bags. I handed her the lighter bags from my load and smiled gratefully at her, which she happily returned.

"Hikari, your room is the first on the right, second is the bathroom, and the third'll be your brothers. The bathroom joins onto both bedrooms, so I thought you two could share it. You don't mind that, do you?" I shook my head, a smile on my face.

"Thanks Kurenai. I don't mind at all, and I'm sure Kira won't mind either." Kurenai nodded.

"Alright, I'll let you two get settled in then. Does Chinese for dinner sound good?" I nodded eagerly, and looked over to Kira's car, where he was pulling bags out.

"Hey bro!" I called. He bumped his head on the interior of his car, cursed, and pulled his head out to look over at me, glowering in a disgruntled way.

"What?" he grumbled.

"Chinese alright with you tonight?" He nodded, pulling his last bag out and locking up his jeep while I turned back to Kurenai with a tentative smile.

"Alright, I should be back in about half an hour. I've got a set of house keys for both of you; they're on the kitchen counter, okay?" I nodded, before Kurenai turned to go back to her car. Kira closed and locked the door behind him as he came inside with his bags, following me up the stairs to the second floor.

"Which one's mine?" He asked from behind me. I looked over my shoulder at him, having stopped at the closed door to the bedroom that now belonged to me.

"Third door on the right. We get to share a bathroom." Kira chuckled at the excited tone of voice I used when mentioning the bathroom.

"Yippee." He murmured, shaking his head at me amusedly, before continuing on to his bedroom down the hall from mine. I opened the door and stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the bedroom.

It was fairly simple in its layout, but it was really nice, as far as bedrooms go. There was a double bed with a green, blue and purple striped bedspread, and silky looking covers on the pillows. There was a desk big enough for a laptop and printer sat in front of the large window. There were two doors on the opposite wall. I opened both and found the bathroom, and a walk in wardrobe, which was more than big enough for everything I had with me, which probably wouldn't even fill half of the wardrobe. I dropped my two duffel bags in the closet, and moving across the room to leave my laptop bag by the desk.

I paused for a moment, deliberating, before pulling open the curtain covering the window to let in the late afternoon sun. I went back over to the wardrobe once I was satisfied with the light in the room, unzipping one of my bags and pulling out all of my clothes and putting them into cubby shelves and onto coat hangers. I worked in silence, moving clothes from one bag, and then the top of the next bag, which also had my toiletries, gadgets, CDs, DVDs, and a few pairs of shoes.

Once everything was in its place, I flopped onto my new bed, sighing in relief as I stared at the ceiling. When I heard a knock on my door, I groaned in answer. The door opened to reveal Kira, who walked into my room, looked around for a moment, then dropped onto my bed beside me. I turned my head to look at him curiously.

"Finished unpacking?" I hummed an affirmative. He stayed silent for a minute as we both laid there, before I remembered our sit in on Kurenai's music lesson. My gaze became curious again as I smiled at my brother.

"I saw you made a new friend today." Kira's eyes widened, before he smiled a little wistfully.

"Yeah. He's a funny guy." He gave the best shrug he could do lying down on a bed, turning his head to look at me. "I like 'im." I smiled at my younger twin, reaching out to squeeze his hand.

"I'm glad you've made a friend, Kira." Kira smiled at me in return.

"Me too, Sis, me too." We laid there in silence for a little while longer, until we heard the front door open and close, and the sound of rustling plastic bags. I sat up and slid off my bed.

"C'mon, Bro, sounds like dinner's here." He nodded, sliding off my bed and following me out the door and down the stairs. After checking the living room, we found an archway that led into the kitchen, where Kurenai was pulling lids off of plastic containers of fried rice, sweet 'n' sour pork, chicken wings, rice noodles, and lastly pulling out a packet of prawn chips.

Kurenai looked up at us and smiled. We smiled in return as we wandered into the kitchen/dining room.

"Kira, can you get some plates out? They're in the second cupboard on the right of the fridge." Kira nodded, opening the cupboard and pulling out some plates. "Hikari, can you get some cutlery from the first drawer on the far right, and a serving spoon from the second drawer?" I nodded, pulling out the cutlery and serving spoon.

Once we were all set, and I had a plate of pork, chicken wings and rice, we sat at the kitchen table and dug into our food. We ate in silence for a while, before Kurenai looked up from her dinner and looked at us curiously.

"Have you guys unpacked everything yet?" we both nodded around mouthfuls of food. She smiled in response.

"I hope you both will like it here. I'm not really sure how to be a mother to you, but I'm hoping we can work on that together." Kira and I looked at her in slight surprise. I looked over at Kira questioningly, and he gave a slight nod and shrug. I turned back to Kurenai, meeting her eyes tentatively.

"Um, we're not really sure how to teach you to be a mother, either. We've pretty much lived with old ladies for half our lives." Kurenai nodded thoughtfully.

"Do you like your rooms?" I nodded, smiling appreciatively. Kira nodded too, a soft smile on his face. Kurenai breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, that's great. I also want you both to know that you can talk to me about anything when you need to, okay?" We both nodded, but I noticed that Kira'd stiffened a little.

Kira didn't open up to people very easily, and not just because of what happened ten years ago. He was a little introverted even before what happened, but the accident seemed to make him even more introverted. For a while after the accident, he never left my side. When I asked him why, he looked at me very seriously and said; "I nearly lost you once, I don't want that to happen again". I'd hugged him tight after he'd told me that. We may not act like it all the time now, but we've been inseparable since the accident. Kira has a weird way of showing it, but that's the truth. I'm pretty much the only person in his life who knows all his secrets, just like he knows all mine. I'm hoping that, this year, Kira can trust someone else enough to open up to them. Kurenai's been nothing but nice and considerate to us since we arrived, so I hope he'll open up to Kurenai eventually.

After dinner, we both helped Kurenai wash, dry and pack away the dishes and cutlery, as well as throwing away the take-away containers and other rubbish. We said goodnight to Kurenai, who went into the lounge to watch the news before going to bed herself, while Kira and I went upstairs to our rooms for the night.

A shower, teeth brushing and change into pyjamas later, and I was lying in my bed, reading a book. A knock on my door made me look up from the book and call a soft 'come in'. Kira opened the door, staying in the doorway.

"Just came in to say g'night." He murmured. I nodded, smiling.

"Sleep well, yeah? Big day tomorrow." Kira nodded, a small, nervous smile on his face.

"Yeah, you too, Sis. See you in the morning." I waved to Kira as he closed my bedroom door again, and padded quietly back to his own room. I yawned, before deciding to go to bed myself, after marking my place in my book and making sure that I had my phone on my bed with an alarm set to wake me up at a slightly decent, early hour tomorrow morning.

With that sorted out, I rolled onto my side, curled up under the covers, and fell asleep to the sounds of the suburbs after dark.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

_**Author's Note: Yeah, I noticed that fan fiction was deleting my double hyphen page breaks, so I gave up and decided to write "page break" whenever the scene changes. Anyway, I'd like another five reviews before I'll post the next chapter, savvy?**_

_**Betaed by HollyEmpire00**_

_**Kudos!**_


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three – First Day**

I groaned as my alarm sounded, reaching around blindly at the head of my bed until I found my phone, pressing buttons until my alarm stopped. Once it was nice and quiet in my room again, I willed myself to roll out of bed and into a standing position. After taking a moment to stretch, I stumbled over to my curtains and pulled them open, looking out at the street for a moment, before rubbing the back of my head, stretching, and yawning again as I wandered over to my closet.

I pulled out a comfortable pair of skinny jeans, and an electric blue singlet top. I dressed as quickly as I could while still half asleep, grabbed a pair of socks, and a pair of black converse that had a blue paint splatter pattern on them. Dropping my shoes, socks and my phone on the end of my bed, I walked over to the bathroom door. I knocked, hearing a grunt coming from somewhere in the bathroom.

"You in the shower?" I called through the door. When I didn't hear an answer, I opened the door to see my brother at the sink, tooth brush in his mouth. I giggled at his appearance – slumped forward over the sink in nothing but his black and white checker boxers, his eyes half closed. He threw a sleepy glare my way. I couldn't help but giggle even more as I grabbed my tooth brush from the cup, and the tooth paste from where Kira had dropped it on the counter.

Once I was ready, I wandered downstairs into the kitchen to see Kurenai, with her hair tied up in a pony tail today, washing a bowl and last night's plates in the sink. She looked up and smiled in greeting when she heard me walk into the kitchen.

"Morning." I murmured.

"Good morning," She replied. "I'd stay and have a chat while you're eating your breakfast, but I have to get going. I'll see you both at school, okay?" I nodded in response. She smiled at me again, dried everything off, and called a quick 'see you later', before walking out the door and disappearing into her car.

I opened all the cupboards and peeked inside, until I found a bowl. I opened up the pantry door and looked around until I found the stash of cereal boxes, grabbing a box of Coco Pops. Once my breakfast was ready, I sat down at the island bench and started shovelling cereal into my mouth.

After a while, Kira came downstairs, now fully dressed. Just as I was about to go for another spoonful of Coco Pops, I found that my bowl wasn't in front of my anymore. I blinked and looked up at Kira, who had the bowl and another spoon in his hands, eating the cereal calmly. I glared at him half-heartedly. He grinned at me, had a few more spoonfuls, then handed the bowl back to me. I quickly finished off the cereal while Kira grabbed a piece of bread from the loaf bag and spread some butter and vegemite onto it, shoving a corner of the bread into his mouth. I put my bowl in the sink and washed it up quickly, before I grabbed my back pack and keys from where I'd left them on the bench.

"Ready?" I asked, looking over at my brother, who nodded as he swallowed the last of his piece of bread. He grabbed his bag and keys and followed me out the door, locking the front door while I traipsed across the lawn to my little green car.

I tossed my bag lightly over onto the front passenger seat, straightening up quickly to wave at my brother, before sliding into my car and starting it up, thinking for a moment to remember the way to the school from here, before doing a U-turn and getting on my way.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

I pulled up in an empty car park next to a black Mitsubishi Lancer, grabbing my back pack and getting out of my car, walking over towards the school buildings. I ignored the typical 'Ooh! New person!' stares. I looked around until I spotted an empty picnic bench, quickly making my way over to the bench and sitting down, dropping my backpack on the table in front of me.

I pulled out my schedule and my map, opening up the map and looking between my map and my timetable. I was a little surprised that there were only four classes during the day, with lunch and a study block separating the two morning lessons from the two afternoon ones. As I worked out where my classes would be, I didn't notice Kira sneaking up behind me. I yelped and jumped about a foot in my seat when Kira nudged my sides.

"Kira Kobayashi, I am _going_ to kill you!" Kira chuckled while I glared half-heartedly at him. He dropped his bag on the table and sat down next to me, looking over my shoulder at my map and timetable.

"You doing art?" He asked, looking from my timetable up at me. I shook my head, looking up at my brother.

"No way, you know painting is your thing, Bro. Besides, I can't paint to save my life, you know that." We shared a laugh for a moment. Kira pulled out his timetable, and we compared classes. We had English together, and biology at different times, and he had art while I had music. Kira also had chemistry and German when I had history and drama, respectively. We were in every other class together.

We looked up from our conversation about what we thought classes here would be like when somebody called my brother's name. I noticed that it was Naruto, Kira's new friend from yesterday. He grinned over at the both of us, waving madly, before making his way over to us, followed by a few other people who looked to be our age, including Hinata.

"Hey, Kira!" He greeted enthusiastically, which got my brother chuckling to himself. I smiled softly at my brother, glad he was happy.

"Hi Naruto, you remember my twin sister, from yesterday? I told you about her?" Naruto blinked in confusion for a moment, looking between me and Kira, before he grinned again.

"Oh, yeah! Nice to meetcha Hikari." I couldn't help but laugh, replying with a happy 'hello'. It felt like Naruto had a personality that drew everyone in. I guess that was what made some people popular; not money, or how beautiful they were, or the clothes they wore. The hard thing about being an orphan though, is that you have no money, and you get all your clothes on sale. The only reason my brother and I had cars, iPods, phones and other expensive things was because we got jobs and worked hard to earn the money to buy them. I brought myself out of my thoughts as Naruto started speaking again.

"I thought you guys'd like to meet some more of my friends, since you're new here." He grinned at us as he said so, and my brother looked to me for a moment. I thought about what Naruto had offered. It was something nobody else had ever offered to us before – friendship. Nobody else had accepted Kira and I when we were moving from state to state and starting school over and over again. We were always the new kids who didn't have parents; and we were picked on because of that. I had no idea that coming home could be like this. I'd thought that readjusting to life in Konoha would be difficult; that it'd be the same as every other place we'd lived in the last ten years. It felt like a relief to know that I was wrong, for once.

We were both quiet a little longer, before I looked up at Naruto, smiled, and nodded; blinking away the itch of tears in my eyes.

"We'd like that very much, Naruto." Kira murmured, and the three of us shared a grateful smile. Naruto's grin got even bigger, if possible.

"Great!" He cheered. "Come sit with us at lunchtime, yeah? I'll introduce you to everybody!" We both nodded in agreement. I looked down at my watch as a bell sounded to see that we had five minutes to get to our pastoral care rooms. I looked at my timetable again, then Kira's, then up at Naruto.

"Um, Naruto?" I asked. He hummed in question and looked at me. "Um, I have pastoral care in Mister Hatake's room, and Kira's got Mister Might, would you be able to show us where to go?" Naruto nodded.

"Sure I can! You're with me, Hikari; I'm in Kakashi-sensei's homeroom too." Naruto turned around and scanned the crowd for a minute, before apparently spotting who he was looking for, because he raised both arms and started waving madly. "Hey! Bushy brows! Neji! Get over 'ere!" I watched as two boys started making their way over to us. One had waist-length, dark brown hair, which he kept in a pony-tail at the nape of his neck, with eyes as pale in colour as Hinata's. He was wearing a whit button down t-shirt and grey wash jeans. The other boy had black, bowl cut hair and black eyes; he was wearing a green t-shirt and khaki coloured cargo shorts. Naruto grinned at the two boys as they approached.

"You bellowed?" The boy with long brown hair asked, half sarcastically. Naruto nodded.

"Yeah, yeah! Can you guys show my new buddy Kira here," Naruto gestured to my brother. "where your homeroom is? He's with you guys. The boys both nodded. Naruto looked back at us and grinned. "There! All set! You ready to go, Hikari?" I nodded, grabbing my bag, map and timetable, gave my brother a quick good luck hug and stood, following Naruto into the main school building.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

_**Author's Note: I'm honestly feeling disappointed with the number of readers I've had only to STILL HAVE only one review with a name suggestion for this story. I'm working hard to make this one different from my other fics, and I'm barely getting any ideas here! To the one person who has reviewed, thank you. To all my other readers, I greatly appreciate feedback and suggestions for my stories, so I'm feeling disappointed at the moment. Anyway, since I haven't been getting any reviews, you'll probably see chapter for in a fortnight tops.**_

_**Betaed by HollyEmpire00**_

_**Kudos!**_

_**Edit: 11/05/2013**_

_**Hey again everybody! (yes, I am still alive!) There isn't a huge edit in this one, I just solidified Kari and Kira's class schedules (and somewhat solidified Sasuke's as well)for the purpose of upcoming new chapters. Get excited readers! The first (semi) major event in the story is approaching! Keep your eyes out my lovelies! Any lateness can be blamed on my beta though xP though I'm partially to blame for not writing for yonks because I've been up to my ears in assignments the last few weeks, and have two major assignments due in June (on the same goddamn day!) which is why updates have been non-existent lately. Still, if you want to be properly informed and updated with the fic, just go to about the halfway point of the chapter where Kari and Kira compare their class schedules. Otherwise this chapter is the same ^_^. Anyway, keep your eyes open for chapter eight, because I'm taking the time to write out a basic plotline specifically for the next chapter or two so that I don't miss any important points for the story, and I'll hopefully start writing the chapter itself tonight :). **_

_**Kudos!**_


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four – The Ethical Issues with Biology**

Naruto led me towards one of the buildings – this particular building had the languages classrooms, as well as the ethics classrooms. Naruto led me to one of the classrooms closer to the building's main exit and into one of the classrooms, which was mostly empty except for two other people. One of them was Sasuke, the boy that was sitting on the other side of my yesterday in Kurenai's music class, as well as one of the girls who glared at me when I was told to sit next to him, who was glaring at me now. I looked back at Naruto when i noticed he'd stopped in the doorway. I noticed he was looking at the glaring girl with pink – pink! – hair and green eyes, with a blush on his cheeks, a dazed look on his face. I stepped in front of him and waved my hand in front of his face.

"Earth to Naruto." I called teasingly. He blinked, crossing his eyes to look at my hand before I lowered it...

"Huh?" He mumbled. I laughed, placing my hands on my hips.

"You still awake in there, genius?" He grinned a little, glancing at Pinkie again.

"Yeah, sorry." He murmured, before walking over and flopping into a seat in the row of grouped desks in front of Sasuke's. I shrugged, following him and sitting next to him, directly in front of Sasuke.

"So how does this normally work?" I asked Naruto, looking at him curiously. He shrugged, looking at the back of Pinkie's head as he started his explanation.

"Well, Kakashi-sensei's normally late anyway, so one of us usually marks the roll once everybody gets here. By the time he gets here, it's time to go to our classes anyway. Whoever's in his Ethics class stays behind and waits for everyone else in their class to get here, while the rest go to whatever class they have that morning."

I nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, so basically we sit here and do nothing for fifteen minutes, then just go straight into Ethics?" Naruto nodded.

"Yeah, the good thing about Ethics is that Kakashi just gives us a topic or puts a video on for us to watch, and then we basically have a class debate for the rest of the lesson. It's pretty laid back, all he marks us on is our participation in the class." I nodded, smiling at the thought.

"This is basically our bludge lesson, isn't it?" Naruto nodded, a grin on his face.

"That's about it, yeah." I giggled, looking forward to Ethics classes.

Eventually, more and more students from different grades started filing into the classroom. I looked at the other students with mild curiosity as they filed into the room. I watched as the two other girls who had glared at me yesterday filed in and joined Pinkie at the front of the classroom. Soon enough, they started whispering and giggling with each other, occasionally throwing dirty looks over their shoulders in my direction. At one stage, when all three of them turned to glare at me, I glared back and flipped them my lovely middle fingers. Their eyes went wide, and they turned back around in their seats, huddling together and whispering again.

I rolled my eyes, leaning back in my seat and crossing my arms. If they were going to have their bitch session about me, they could at least be less obvious about it. Naruto suddenly sat up in his chair when a red headed boy walked into the classroom.

"Hey! Gaara!" He called, waving his arms around wildly. I winced, covering my ears with my hands, reaching over and bopping Naruto on the head in reprimand.

"Naruto, we're in a classroom." He grumbled, rolling his eyes as he rubbed his head.

"Yeah, so?" He mumbled.

"Use your inside voice." I crossed my arms over my chest again, mock-glaring at him.

"He doesn't know what an inside voice is." A quiet, smoky voice chuckled. I turned and looked up, seeing that the owner of the voice was the red head that Naruto had been screaming at just now. I laughed nervously, rubbing the back of my head sheepishly.

"I should've guessed." I chuckled as the red head sat down on my other side. I smiled at him. "My name's Hikari Kobayashi." He blinked, offering a small smile in return.

"Gaara Subaku." He replied in a murmur. After a few more moments, Kira walked into the room, looking around at the other kids in the room. I smiled and waved to catch his attention. He wandered over, sitting down at the only free seat left at our table, which was on the other side of Naruto, who grinned at him. I watched with a smile as my brother and Gaara introduced themselves to each other. We sat and talked for a while as people kept filing into the classroom, just talking about random things and laughing at Naruto's jokes.

The classroom was now full to capacity, and after ten minutes of waiting for something to happen, a man with spiky, silver hair sauntered into the classroom with a novel in his hand. I also noticed that he wore a cloth mask pulled up over the lower half of his face, tucked into his white button-down shirt. He also wore a loosened black tie with the top button of the shirt undone, and black slacks.

_Well, at least he dresses nicely,_ was my initial thought of this man as he parked his rear on his desk, placed his book gently on the desk beside him, then looked up at us, crossing his arms over his chest as he studied us.

"So, I have two more students in my class? What are your names?" He looked over at our table, more specifically at me and my brother. I flushed in slight embarrassment and cleared my throat.

"I'm Hikari Kobayashi." I spoke up over the students still chattering away in the back of the room. I could swear i heard giggling and cooing back there. I glanced around the room and soon found out why. The trio of scantily dressed girls were also in this class, and so was the fan girl magnet, Sasuke Uchiha. I turned back to the front of the class, my embarrassed blush darkening slightly when i noticed that Sasuke was looking at _me_. I cleared my throat and willed my red cheeks to go away.

"I'm Kira Kobayashi." My brother murmured, looking at the desk rather than the teacher. The teacher raised an eyebrow.

"Twins?" He asked us. We both nodded in response. He nodded, pushing away from his desk and going over to a desktop computer and booting it up, before moving behind his desk and pulling down a projector screen, before going back over to the computer and clicking away for a minute.

Without turning his eyes away from the screen, he pointed up at the projector mounted to the ceiling.

"Sasuke, turn that on for me, will you?" I heard the legs of a chair scrape against the floor, and footsteps as he walked the length of the room to Kakashi-sensei's desk and grabbed the remote control for the projector and turned it on. Once Kakashi-sensei was organised, he turned back to face the class, crossing his arms over his chest again.

"Alright, today we start our unit on religious cults, and i have a few videos i want to show you before we get started on the discussion side of things. The first one I've got for you today is a video made about an end-of-the-world cult." He turned and clicked away at the computer again until a video player came up. He paused the video before it started and turned back to us. "This particular cult was based in New Mexico, based on private property. They called the "village" they had established their "Strong City". The founder of this cult was a former sailor named Wayne Bent, who began calling himself Michael Travesser when he started the cult. Now, before I start this video, just remember that if you feel like you have to leave the room, feel free to do so. Any questions?" he eyed everyone in the classroom, before nodding to himself and hitting the play button on the computer.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

I shuddered as the end credits finally started rolling. My conclusion – that Wayne Bent man was a disgusting creep and it amazed me how he had persuaded so many people to join him in his cult, particularly how teen-aged girls had let him do the things they described in the video to them.

"So, what do you guys think?" Kakashi-sensei asked, leaning against his desk again. I slowly raised my hand, and Kakashi-sensei nodded to me.

"Um, I think that, that man has something seriously wrong going on in his head, and it really surprised me that he had that number of people who actually believed what he was saying to them." Kakashi nodded, before looking around the room.

"Anybody else want to say anything?" he asked, eyeing the classroom. He nodded to somebody in the back.

"Are those girls, like, _stupid_, or something? I mean, they actually _let _an old pervert touch them like that?" A whiny voice asked. I grimaced, that was the exact tone of voice that grated on my nerves. I looked over my shoulder to find that the direction the voice came from was one of the three girls who were glaring at me for sitting next to Mr Popular yesterday.

"I wouldn't call them stupid," My brother murmured, looking over at Kakashi-sensei, "because they aren't, they just believed the bull he was feeding them, about him being the son of God, or one of the Arch Angels, or whatever it was he was calling himself. They were sucked in by his lies, because they were gullible and weak-minded enough to believe him."

Kakashi nodded, looking impressed. "That's a good answer, Kira." Kakashi-sensei looked over at the clock then when people walking and talking through the halls could be heard. He looked back at us and ran a hand through his spiky silver hair. "Alright, class dismissed, I'll see you guys tomorrow afternoon."

We all filed out of the classroom and to one of the picnic tables outside for the first break of the day. It was only about ten minutes for morning tea, but the lessons were each an hour long, so by the time we had finished all five lessons, with an hour for lunch; the school day was over and it was ten past three. I didn't get why the lessons were so long, but I guess it'd be better than having seven or eight lessons a day.

For our morning tea break, a few more of Naruto's friends wandered over and introduced themselves to me and Kira, before another of Naruto's friends, Kiba Inuzuka, lead me off to Biology, while Gaara took my brother to his English class.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

I stood in the doorway of my biology lab, an eyebrow raised at the drawing (it was rather crude, I might add) on the white board that was quite obviously illustrated by the teacher. This teacher was unlike the others I had seen yet; he had long, spiky hair that was just as white as the board that he was continuing to draw on. I shook my head and added another tick to my tally of mental scars. I slowly walked over to an empty seat in one of the middle rows of work benches, barely taking notice that Mr Popular was on one side of me, while Kiba sat on the other.

I talked quietly with Kiba while the classroom slowly filled up. I had the feeling that someone was glaring holes into the back of my head while I was talking with Kiba. Thinking about it for a moment, I shrugged in my head and decided to ignore it.

By the time the late comers had arrived, the teacher had finished his drawings and had now written "Physical Human Development" above them in bright blue white board ink. He stood beside his drawings, arms crossed over his chest as he looked out over the class, before his gaze landed on me.

"Hm, looks like I have a new student in my class." He mumbled to himself. My eyebrow went up again, and vaguely, I wondered what he was going to do next. What i wasn't expecting him to do was to leap onto his desk at the front of the room and strike a ridiculous pose as he pointed in my general direction.

"Welcome, newcomer, to the classroom, of the great, fantastic, _amazing_, Jiraiya-sensei!" Kiba was trying to smother his laughter with his fist. I jumped nearly a foot out of my seat from surprise, my heart racing at the sight of our suddenly insane biology teacher. I looked to the other side of me to notice that I had ended up sitting next to Sasuke again, and that his only response to our teacher's sudden performance was a barely noticeable twitching eyebrow. I leaned towards him a little, poking him gently in the shoulder until he looked at me.

"Is he always like this?" I murmured. I figured asking Kiba wouldn't go over too well, since he had one arm wrapped around his tummy, while his fist was still shoved in front of his mouth to try and stop himself from laughing.

Sasuke nodded slightly and mumbled an 'uh huh', before Jiraiya-sensei leaped off of his desk to stand in front of it. I whispered a thank you to Sasuke and turned back to the front again, pulling away from him, as Jiraiya-sensei began what I later decided was a more perverted than it should've been lesson.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

I walked out of the biology lab next to Kiba, shuddering from slight disgust. Kiba was laughing openly.

"I swear, I love biology, i really do, but I'm now mentally scarred for _life_! I don't think I even want to _think_ about what goes on in that man's head!" That only made Kiba laugh harder than before. I sighed, shaking my head at him, but I couldn't help but smile. His laughter was infectious.

"So, lunch time after English, right?" Kiba finally calmed down enough to gasp out a 'yes' to answer my question as we wandered down the halls.

"I sure hope our English teacher isn't a pervert." I muttered, and couldn't help but shudder in disgust again. That doubled Kiba over in laughter _again_. I grabbed the collar of his shirt, pulling him up to stand straight.

"_You're _supposed to show _me_ where our English class is, remember?" I asked teasingly. Kiba grinned at me and nodded.

"Sure I do, I just can't help laughing. The rest of us are so used to Jiraiya-sensei that it doesn't phase us; having somebody new here who's only just met him is great, because we get to laugh at their reactions to him." I punched Kiba's shoulder for that one, and he yelped, rubbing the spot where I'd punched him.

"_Damn_ girl, not so hard!" He teased with a wink. I stuck my tongue out at him in reply.

"English class?" I reminded him, and we walked off down the halls and across the commons to the languages building.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

_**Author's Note: Well, there's chapter four for you, my devoted readers! And some awesome Kiba-ness for his fangirls out there :3. So, after a text message conference with Holly, we finally have a title for the story! Aren't you proud of us? Thanks to one of my reviewers who left us with six different titles to choose from, we narrowed it down to three, and then to a variation of one! Now: the title won't be revealed until the release of chapter 5 into the cyber world, and the title of the story itself will be changed when I post chapter 6.**_

_**Also, for any of my readers who want to know more about the cult mentioned in the Ethics class section of this chapter, I've provided the link to the first part of the 4 corners documentary on YouTube here: **_ watch?v=CvytVhqiO6E _**Now; I advise that people under the age of sixteen don't watch this, namely because – I watched it when I was sixteen in my Ethics class, and it **_**still**_** disturbs me.**_

_**Anyway, that's all for now folks! Happy reading!**_

_**Kudos**_

_**Betaed by HollyEmpire00**_


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five – Lunch**

I looked around the lunch room as Kiba lead me inside. There was a servery to one side of the room, and several doors leading out to a courtyard littered with picnic tables, students scattered inside and out. Kiba lead me over to the servery, pulling his wallet out of one of his back pockets as he did so. I followed his example and pulled my purse out of my backpack, falling into the line behind Kiba. I looked up at a whiteboard on the wall, which had the lunch options written on it.

After paying for my meat pie and chocolate milk, Kiba lead me outside and to one of the larger picnic tables, where fourteen people in total were sitting. The crowd included Kira, Naruto, and surprisingly, Sasuke. They were all eating their lunches, talking and laughing amongst themselves.

I followed Kiba, a little nervously, over to the table, and slid in between my brother and Sasuke. Kira offered me a small smile.

"Hey 'Kari." He greeted, turning back to his noodle cup. I ruffled his hair affectionately, then cracked the seal on my bottle of chocolate milk. I gulped down a few mouthfuls before I started on my pie. Good Lord did I love pies. Best culinary invention to ever exist, I swear.

I glanced out of the corner of my eye at the raven-haired boy sitting next to me curiously. His meal was a plastic box of sushi and a bottle of water. I returned my focus to my food when I saw his eyes move in my direction. I hoped desperately that my cheeks hadn't gone pink like I thought they had.

Naruto happened to finish scarfing down his instant ramen at that point then. Chugging down his little carton of full cream milk, before he turned his gaze to me and Kira. In what I was beginning to think of as his usual, happy-go-lucky manner, he introduced up the rest of the group. Hinata, Shino, Shikamaru, Ino, Chouji, Temari, Kankurou, Gaara, Ten Ten, Lee, and Neji. He didn't bother reintroducing Kiba and Sasuke, since we already knew them, and reintroduced himself for the heck of it, which got a giggle from me and a chuckle from my brother.

Overall, lunch was definitely enjoyable. At least until the last twenty odd minutes or so. Kira and I were talking happily with our new friends until Ino, who was sitting across from me, suddenly turned her attention to something over my shoulder.

"Uh oh. Fan club at twelve o'clock." She spoke loud enough for all of us to hear, though my brother and I just looked at each other in confusion. What on Earth could Ino be talking about? Ino looked more annoyed at something than usual. Naruto, however, looked like a love struck dummy. Kiba had a scowl on his face, and Hinata was focussing intently on her food. Shikamaru looked nearly as annoyed as Sasuke, as did most of the others. Chouji was simply determined to munch on his food.

Still confused, Kira turned to Naruto for an explanation, and blinked in surprise at the far off look on his face.

"Uh, Earth to Naruto? You awake in there?" Kira leaned across the table to give Naruto a shake, but drew back when somebody spoke up from behind us.

"Hey, new girl, you're in _my_ seat." I shuddered in annoyance and disgust at the mere tone of the person's voice. It was the exact tone of voice that rubbed me the wrong way and pushed all my buttons at once. I looked at the bench in front of me with an obvious flare, then raised my hips and with the same, obvious way, looked down at the bench I was sitting on; both of which were unmarked, surprisingly. Then, I looked up and locked eyes with a red haired girl with the weirdest hairdo I had ever come across yet.

"Oh, I'm sorry, but I don't see your name on here. In fact, I don't see any names at all." Then, in the same sarcastic way I just spoke, I looked towards my brother's seat and made the same show of looking for names scratched into the seats. I looked back up at the red head again, this time with a smirk on my face. "Funny, I don't see anything on Kira's seat either. Now, _how_ could this possibly be your seat?" I was all politeness and innocence asking that, while the red head and her two lackeys behind her just glared at me. I swear, if they were cartoon characters, there could quite possibly be steam coming out of their ears.

"Because I _always_ sit next to Sasuke." Was her whiny answer. I mentally cringed at the whine in her voice. I turned then and looked at Sasuke, one eyebrow raised in question. He looked back at me blankly, but from the look in his eyes, I could tell that he'd rather be listening to death metal than listening to the whiny red head's voice. Before I could open my mouth, Kira brushed his hand along my arm until his fingers shackled my wrist. I looked at him curiously, but he was eyeing the girl with worry on his face, while she looked at my brother with malice. That had me wondering why somebody would look at my brother like that when he hadn't done anything to them.

"Well, I'm _so sorry_, but it looks like you miss out today." Boy, was she cranky about that answer. She leaned in close to my face, a smirk on her overly made up face. I resisted the urge to pinch my nose. Her perfume _reeked_, and she definitely wore _way_ too much of it.

"Listen here, you hussy of a new girl. Sasuke is _mine_. M-I-N-E, you got that? If you even _think_ of touching a hair on his head, for _any_ reason _what-so-ever_, I will _personally_ end whatever _tiny_ reputation you have here. Got it?" Her lips curled upwards in anything _but_ a "sexy" smile as she turned to Sasuke, waggling her fingers and blowing a kiss at him. "I'll see _you_ later, hottie." She winked, well, attempted to, before she strutted off with her posse trailing behind her. I raised an eyebrow, and turned to look at a sheet white Sasuke, my eyebrow still raised.

"Oh-kay, that was extremely, muchly weird." I commented, before turning back to my pie to finish it off. Kira shook his head at me, a smile on his face. The others, excluding a still paler-than-normal Sasuke, all looked at me in stunned silence.

"Uh, Kari, do you have _any_ idea who you just took on?" Shikamaru asked sceptically. I shrugged, still munching my pie.

"No, not really, no. Especially considering I've only been here for not even a day. And I wouldn't call it "taking her on" exactly. More like subtly handing her, her own tongue on a gilded silver platter."

"Why her tongue?" Ino asked curiously, looking interested in what my answer would be. I smirked in what Kira would describe as my "she's got an evil plot in mind" smirk.

"Because people with a voice like hers should have their tongues removed. _Permanently_." Everyone else burst into laughter at that, excluding a still petrified Sasuke.

The rest of the lunch break was passed with random conversation. Sasuke eventually returned to the world of the living from whatever corner of his mind he was hiding in with a sigh of relief when he noticed that his fanclub had vanished. After the bell rang and I threw my trash in the bin, I went back to the table to get my backpack. I looked around at all my new friends, who were either finishing or had finished their lunches.

"I'm heading to music now, anybody coming with?" Hinata and Ino both nodded. I ruffled my brother's hair teasingly before following the two girls off to music class. I didn't notice the pair of onyx eyes that watched me curiously as I left, nor did I notice the pair of red eyes glaring holes into the back of my head.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

Kira Kobayashi didn't have a good feeling about the red haired girl who tried to bully his twin sister. In other words, his "spidey" senses were tingling, and he didn't like the way they were tingling. He sure was glad that they had strutted off before the warning bell had gone though, because he didn't know how to deal with people like her, even though Kari did. He also wondered why the ring leader of Sasuke's fan girl posse had looked at him like _he_ was in her way, when he hadn't even said two words to her. Surprisingly, it was Sasuke who brought him out of his thoughts – Naruto was still staring dazedly at one of Sasuke's fan girls.

"Hey, what've you got next?" he asked quietly, as he finished off his sushi lunch.

"Um," Kira pulled his timetable out of his bag and looked at it, scanning his class list until he found the one he was looking for. "I have art next." Sasuke nodded and stood, rubbish in one hand and his school bag in the other.

"I have music now, but I'll show you where the art room is." Kira nodded, a little confused, but gathered his things and followed Sasuke as he walked towards wherever the art room was. They walked in a relatively comfortable silence for most of the way, before the silence started to get to Kira.

"So, um, you've lived in Konoha your whole life?" He asked curiously, looking over at the dark haired, dark eyed teen. Sasuke nodded and mumbled an 'mmhmm'. Kira looked down at his feet and nodded as well.

"Must be nice, knowing where your home is. Kari and me, we've never had a real home. Ever since our parents died, we've been bounced from place to place. We've never been able to call one particular place home for as long as I can remember." Sasuke didn't say anything, but looked over at Kira, an unreadable expression in his eyes.

"She almost died when it happened, y'know. Honestly, I'm really happy that she pulled through. I got out with a few broken bones and a concussion. She was in a coma for a few weeks after the accident." Sasuke looked down at the ground in front of him, still saying nothing.

"Like I was saying though, I'm really glad that she's alive. After all we've been through together, I honestly don't think I could have got through it all without her, y'know?" Kira looked up at the sky, a small, whimsical smile on his face. "She's my rock. She always has been." Kira turned to look at Sasuke and smiled at him. "I suppose the bonus about coming back to Konoha is that we're being released from the system next year, and we can stay or go if we want to."

"What do you think you'll do. Stay, or go?" Sasuke asked quietly. Kira blinked in surprise, looking at Sasuke for a moment, before a smile spread across Kira's face.

"I definitely want to be able to call this place home again, like it was before the accident. I'm sure Hikari wants that too; she always hated it when we got moved to another place. What both of us want is to settle down in one place and definitely not go anywhere for a while. A _long_ while." Sasuke nodded thoughtfully, before slowing to a stop in front of a small set of stairs that lead up to a veranda.

"The main art room is up those stairs and to the left. If I'm right, you should be in there." Kira nodded, murmured his thanks to Sasuke, and trotted off up the stairs and into the art room. Sasuke stood there, lost in thought for a moment, before he turned and headed for the music room.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

I was sitting in one of the practice rooms down the hall from the classroom, playing a bouncy show tune on the piano in the room for fun. When I finished off with the show tune, I trailed into a slower, calmer melody, which I had learned by ear after listening to the score from the opening for Final Fantasy X. _**(Wewt!)**_ The first time I heard it a few years ago, I became determined to learn how to play the melody on the piano.

I wasn't a musical genius, don't get me wrong, I just preferred learning some scores by ear. I only had a handful of pieces memorised though, the rest I played from sheet music. As I finished playing the last notes, I jumped in surprise at the sound of applause coming from the doorway. With a hand over my racing heart, I turned towards the door to see Kurenai, Ino, Hinata, Naruto, Kiba and even Sasuke standing there, all with different variations of impressed looks on their faces.

"That was _amazing_, believe it!" Naruto cheered. Hinata nodded and hummed her agreement with Naruto's statement. Kiba grinned cheesily at me and gave me two thumbs up. Kurenai and Ino complimented me for learning to play a score like that by heart, and Sasuke stood silently, a small smile on his face. Don't look now, but I think my cheeks went a little pink when my eyes met his. I tried desperately to not think of him as anything other than a friend though, because I'm pretty sure he had enough fan girls with obsessive crushes on him to last a lifetime. I turned back to face the piano as my cheeks darkened.

"It's nothing really, and I messed up on a few notes, since I haven't played in a while." I protested feebly as they continued to chatter about my "amazing" skills, with the exception of Sasuke, who just continued to look at me.

"Hey, hey, Kari! Can you sing too?" Naruto asked excitedly. I shook my head.

"I never took up vocals, so I've never learnt how to sing properly. Besides, I'm happy knowing how to play piano and flute." Naruto looked absolutely dumbstruck.

"You chose playing the flute over singing? Kari! Why'd ya do that?! You coulda been the new secret weapon my band's been lookin' for!" I blinked in surprise.

"Band?" I mumbled questioningly. Naruto nodded vigorously.

"Yeah! Kiba's our drummer, I play bass guitar and sing backup vocals. Sasuke's our lead guitarist and lead vocalist. We've been lookin' for somebody who could play a keyboard and do backup vocals as well." I ran my fingers over the piano, looking down at my lap. I looked up again and noticed Kurenai smiling encouragingly at me. When I turned my eyes away from Kurenai, I jumped again.

Naruto was kneeling on the floor in front of me, with a classic puppy dog look on his face, hands clasped in front of him. "Please join the band, please, please, _please!_ I'll love you forever if you say yes!" I blinked at Naruto, complete shock on my face.

"Um, um, um...okay?" Naruto cheered gleefully, before leaping on me in a bear hug, knocking me off the bench and onto the floor. I looked up at the others standing in the doorway helplessly. Ino was giggling, Hinata was bright red and looked like she was about to faint. Kurenai looked bemused, and Sasuke had a smirk on his face.

"Thank you, thank you, _thank you!_" Naruto screamed. I hesitantly reached an arm around and patted him on the back a couple times.

"Um, sure thing Naruto, but could you maybe, um... I dunno..._get offa me?!_" Naruto leapt off of me right away, bright red and apologetic. I waved him off when he tried to help me up off the floor and stood up, dusting myself off. I looked over at Naruto then, to find he looked fearful for his life.

"Uh, Naruto, I'm not gonna hit you or anything. Just don't do that again, okay?" Naruto nodded, still looking slightly afraid. I couldn't help but start laughing at the look on Naruto's face, and the whole situation. Turns out my first day at Konoha High wasn't so bad after all. That thought had me smiling for the rest of the day.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

I was headed for my car when someone called my name in a rather loud, recognisable voice. I turned to look at Naruto questioningly as he ran over to me, a grin on his face.

"Hey, hey, Hikari. Do you have a mobile phone?" I nodded, humming positively in answer. Naruto cheered, before pulling an iPhone out of his pocket. "Can I get your number? So I can call you for practices, and if you ever wanna come hang out with the rest of us?" I smiled at Naruto, nodding in agreement before we exchanged numbers. Naruto paused for a moment, before looking up at me again, suddenly wide eyed and excited. "oh, oh! Can I give your numbers to everyone else in our group too? I can ask them to send you a text with their numbers and names." I smiled.

"Sure Naruto, thanks a lot. I appreciate it." Naruto nodded, a cheerful smile on his face, before he ran off again to wherever his car was parked. I shook my head bemusedly. That boy could make friends with even the cruellest person, I'm sure. Well, maybe not a psychomaniac, and I'm not too sure about the most heartless serial killer, but pretty much anybody if he tried hard enough.

With positive thoughts circling through my mind from my good first day at Konoha High, I unlocked my car, tossed my backpack onto the passenger seat, and slid into the driver's seat to head back to Kurenai's for the night.

I was about to pull out of my parking space when somebody tapped on the window on the driver's side of my car. I looked over, shifting back into neutral, to see that it was, to my surprise, Sasuke Uchiha looking at me through the window. I reached over and wound the window down, looking at him curiously. "Hey. What's up?" I asked as he bent himself lower towards the car.

"We have band practice at my place this afternoon, in case Naruto forgot to tell you." He murmured. I couldn't help but giggle a little.

"He did forget to tell me, actually. You guys don't mind if Kira comes too, do you?" Sasuke shook his head in answer, before he thought of something else.

"Hey, my car's booked in to be serviced tomorrow, and I thought I could get a lift with you or your brother, since you're just next door to me. I blinked in surprise.

"We are? Wow, I didn't notice. Then again, I hadn't properly met you before today, I guess." Sasuke nodded, a small smirk quirking his lips.

"Yes, we're neighbours. So, like I said, band practice at my place today in about half an hour or so. You and Kira can come on over whenever you're ready." I nodded, when a thought occurred to me.

"Y'know, this is the first proper conversation I've had with you since I met you."

"Is it?"

"Not much of a talker, are you?" I teased, reaching a hand out to poke him lightly on the shoulder. He pouted when he didn't manage to catch my hand before I could poke him.

"No, I'm not. I figured out a few years ago that the less I speak in public, the less those rabid...things, seem to like me." Sasuke shuddered with distaste. I looked at him in surprise.

"Wait, are you talking about those girls from lunch today?" Sasuke shuddered again, which answered my question. I offered a sympathetic smile.

"I wish I could relate. I've never been in one place long enough to know if anybody even thought of me like that." I shrugged. "I suppose that comes with being a foster kid though. You never really get to stay in one place long enough to call it home." Sasuke's expression was unreadable at this point, but I didn't think much of it. Instead, I raised a hand in a wave, and Sasuke took the hint and stepped back from the car.

"I'll see you soon, yeah?" he nodded, and I reversed out of the parking space and headed for Kurenai's.

_**PAGEBREAK: PLEASE READ! THE NEW STORY TITLE IS BELOW! THANK YOU!**_

_**Author's Note: Well, there's the end of Hikari's first official day at Konoha High, with the added bonus of Kira's point of view for some of the chapter!**_

_**So, my story has a name now! Thanks to the few of you who actually DID offer up ideas. (That be: MorgyEliz and Guest, who were both anonymous reviewers, by the way!) Anywhoot, like I said in my last review, I offered up the suggestions to the scrutiny of HollyEmpire00 (my awesome beta and bestie :3) and myself, of course, and we eventually decided on a title, which is a slightly morphed version of one of the suggestions made.**_

_**Following the completion of chapter six, this story will be reposted with its new title, which is: "Never Letting You Go". Once again, thank you to my two anonymous readers who suggested titles for the story. I loved all your ideas, but of course, I could only decide on one, and "Never Letting You Go" suited where I wanted the story to go plot-wise. At this stage, I have the plot up until the first major conflict point written up, which I think is a good place to be at the moment. As you read in this chapter, Sasuke is starting to warm up to Kari (maybe Kira telling him that she almost died has something to do with it? I haven't decided yet...) Since one major thing Holly pointed out to me, being that I tend to make the romance happen just a tad bit too fast for her liking, I'm trying my darndest to slow it down. This means there probably won't be any MAJOR SasukexHikari fluffiness for a little while. At this stage, it's the end of day one, and Hikari's only just met him! Hold onto your hats though, because there's going to be a little more drama and other stuff happening in the next few chapters to help fill in time, and because my pre-written plot dictates it be so, before any real romance starts happening between Sasuke and Kari. Remember my lovelies, they have to spend time together as friends first, which means more fun for me to write with in the meantime.**_

_**Also, as much as I know some of you love reading my stories, I also happen to have a life away from my computer, and it happens to be called a university bachelor's degree, which means I don't have as much time for writing as I used to, which is why my updates have been so scarce. I currently have four assignments (that I know of) due within the next two months, one of which is due next Friday, which I have to print off and mail to the university (since that particular English class comes under the arts Department, they need hard copies of any assignment that you have to complete for the course).**_

_**Another thing on my list of mentionables (for those who don;t have the story in their alerts) is that I have finished a very short chapter update for "Icy Eyes, Bloody Shadow", which I will also be posting today, which means we're now waiting on a chapter update from the lovely Holly. (Holly, cough up the goodies soon please)**_

_**One more thing, my Gundam SEED/SEED Destiny fic (for those of you who don't already know) is undergoing a massive re-write (of all three chapters Holly and I have semi written at the moment), but it is also sitting on the back burner for the moment. I've mentioned character designs to Holly (wink, wink, nudge, nudge Holly!) because she's only drawn Kusari at this stage, and I would like to have them posted on deviantART at one stage so you guys can see what we think the characters look like. (I'm also considering begging her to do character designs of Kari and Kira for me, since she's the better artist) Anyway, because I'm focussing mainly on this fic at the moment, most other projects are on the back burner until I decide to look at them, grimace, and fix them, then toss them in holly's direction for either her chapter or her beta opinion.**_

_**I'll try to have the story reposted with its new title and chapter six within the next few weeks, but I have to make my studies a priority, as much as I love writing for the sake of writing. So, I bid you adieu for now, and thank you lovely people once again for sticking with me through my crappy starting fics, through to today. You guys have no idea how much I value your reviews (the positive ones, however few they are), and that you guys even just read my stories. I'm hoping you've noticed improvements in my writing over the years I've been on here, because I know I have.**_

_**Anyway, thanks again, and keep your eyes peeled for updates, because they'll happen...eventually.**_

_**Kudos**_

_**Beta'd by Holly**_


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six – Will of Fire- Beta'd**

I wandered to the end of Kurenai's driveway, looking at the houses next door. Kira ambled up beside me as I noticed Sasuke's car in the driveway of the house to the left of ours. In case you were wondering, Sasuke drove a Mitsubishi Lancer. A black one. I stepped up onto the front veranda and knocked on the front door, before pushing my fingers into the pockets of my jeans and rocking back and forth on my heels. Kira chose to wait patiently beside me.

A woman with long, dark hair and dark eyes answered the door; she blinked curiously at us, but offered us a smile anyway. "Hi there. Can I help you two at all?" She asked kindly.

I nodded, taking my fingers out of my pockets. "Um, yeah. We moved in with Kurenai yesterday. We're friends of Sasuke's?" The woman's smile broadened.

"Well, I'm Mikoto, I'm Sasuke's mother."

"Nice to meet you missus Uchiha. I'm Hikari Kobayashi."

"I'm Kira – her twin." Kira spoke up quietly.

"You're twins?" Mikoto asked in surprise, before she smiled again. "That must be lovely. I have a younger sister and an older brother, but we aren't quite as close as the two of you must be. Come on in." She stepped aside and opened the door wider; closing it behind us once we were inside. I looked around the entry way and what I could see of the rest of the house with awe. This place definitely had that kind of homely feel to it. It felt lived in, in a _very_ good way.

"You have a lovely home." I murmured as I looked around the house. Mikoto smiled at me, before gesturing to the stairs that lead to the second floor.

"Sasuke should be in his bedroom. It's the second door on the right hand side of the hall." Kira and I murmured our thanks before heading upstairs to find Sasuke.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

Sasuke looked up at the sound of somebody knocking on his bedroom door. He knew it wasn't Naruto. That dobe would just throw the door open and scream his arrival to the whole street. That left several options – his mum, his dad, his older brother, Kiba, or the twins.

"Door's unlocked." He called, turning to face his guitar again. He was working on some new lyrics for the band, particularly some that were ready made for Hikari to play along with. There was one song they'd written though... Sasuke always felt like something was missing with it. Maybe Hikari was the solution?

"Yeah, you can be the greatest, you can be the best. You can be King Kong banging on his chest..." Sasuke mumbled to himself, playing a few chords until he had the right combination. When he had it, he scribbled the lyrics and chord into his notebook.

Sasuke looked up when somebody sat down next to him on the bed. It was Hikari; Kira was sitting on his desk chair.

"Hey." Sasuke mumbled in greeting. Kira smiled and murmured a 'hello'. Hikari just smiled at him.

"Whatcha writing?" She asked curiously, peering over at his notebook. Sasuke turned back to his guitar, hoping neither of the twins noticed the pink staining his cheeks all of a sudden.

"A song. I'm writing it so you can play the keyboard and sing backup like Naruto wants you too." Sasuke quickly grabbed the notebook up and flicked back a few pages until he found the song he was looking for. "I wrote this one near the end of last year, but I think it's been missing something every time we played it. You think you can come up with the keyboard score for that?" Hikari scanned through the lyrics for a moment, before looking up at him with awe in her eyes.

"This is amazing, Sasuke. You should consider lyricism as a profession." Sasuke blinked, and he was almost certain his cheeks turned a darker shade of pink. Traitorous lumps of skin. Hikari looked back down at Sasuke's notebook, scanning the lyrics again. She nodded to herself, looking up at him a moment later. "Yeah, I think I can come up with something. You have any spare score paper?" Sasuke nodded.

He put his guitar aside, got up, and went to his desk, pulling the loose leaf paper out of one of the ring binders he had piled on the desk. He handed the paper and a pencil to Hikari. She turned back to the lyrics for a moment, and then she was creating a keyboard score for the song he wrote last year. He watched her for a moment then looked over at Kira, who had a smile on his face. Sasuke twitched, and mouthed a 'what?' at Kira. Kira shrugged, but his smile only broadened.

Sasuke shook his head confusedly, he didn't get Kira, or what Kira apparently knew that Sasuke didn't. Resolutely, Sasuke picked his guitar back up and continued to compose his new song, waiting patiently while Hikari studied the song she was working on. He watched her for a moment before he turned back to the notebook, biting the inside of his cheek as he began to nut out the guitar chords and lyrics for the new song.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

Kira couldn't stop smiling for the life of him. What made it even better was that neither his sister nor Sasuke had any clue at all. It also saddened him a little; mostly because of all his personal fears. That and the fact that it was harder for him to find somebody he could crush on without anyone besides his sister knowing about it. Sure, he had Kari, and their friends, but that didn't mean that Kira didn't feel lonely from time to time.

Maybe he should go hang out at the local shopping centre for a while. It'd be less awkward for him, and for Sasuke, who had noticed his smile earlier. He knew it was impossible to develop a dating relationship in a day, but Sasuke could get to know his sister better without Kira there to make things awkward. He got up from Sasuke's desk chair, and both his sister and Sasuke looked up.

"Hey Kari," Kira murmured once he was standing. "I'mma gonna go get a snack from somewhere. You want something?" Kari nodded, smiling at Kira.

"Sure, a Mars Bar or a Kit Kat please?" Kira nodded, before he left the room, closing the door behind him. He sighed to himself, before he left the Uchiha household, pulling his car keys out of his pocket as he made the short walk back to Kurenai's. He climbed into his Jeep and drove away from the house towards Konoha's shopping centre, which Naruto had told him was a few blocks away from their high school.

Thankfully, he didn't get lost on the way. He pulled up in a parking space as close as he could get to the shopping centre. After making sure his car was locked, he wandered over to the main entrance

As he was walking inside, he noticed a bunch of older young men, all wearing the same black leather jackets with a red cloud on the back of them. The youngest one looked to be nineteen or twenty, Kira couldn't tell for sure. Kira could tell from the way some of them looked at passers-by, Kira could feel it, that some of them were bad news, really bad news. He ducked his head as he walked past them, so he didn't notice the blonde haired, blue eyed youth who looked at him with interest, left his jacket with a red head wearing the same jacket, and followed Kira into the shopping centre.

Kira paused once he was inside the shopping centre, looking around him at the wide hallways lined with shops. After a moment, he wandered off in one particular direction, looking at all the shops around him. He soon spotted Sanity, his favourite CD/DVD shop, and decided to take a look in the shop. He looked at the new DVDs that had been recently released, wondering if there was anything new that he'd like to watch.

He couldn't help but smile when he picked up a case for season one of Mrs Brown's Boys, flipping the case over to read the back cover. He remembered watching a YouTube clip his sister had shown him once that was from this show. With the DVD case in hand, he kept looking around, not noticing the bright eyed blonde that was following him.

He paid for his DVD, then made his way over to the CD section, to have a browse on his way out. He didn't find any CDs he'd like to buy, so he decided to keep looking around the shopping centre. Eventually he came across a department store and wandered inside, easily finding different chocolate bars near the checkouts. He grabbed a Mars Bar and a Kit Kat for his sister, and grabbed a chunky cookies and cream Kit Kat for himself.

He turned around to go and pay for the chocolate bars when he ran smack bang into somebody. He would've gone sprawling to the floor if a pair of hand hadn't grabbed his hips and held him up. Kira blinked in surprise, looking up to meet one blue eye. The other one was hidden by his long, thick, very blonde fringe.

"Sorry about that," Kira murmured as his cheeks went pink. "I wasn't looking where I was going." The blonde smiled at him.

And Kira suddenly felt _very_uncomfortable.

"That's okay, un. I don't mind," The blonde squeezed Kira's hips, his cheeks darkened, before he let go of Kira's hips. He took a small, half step back. Kira took a step back also. He was now feeling _extremely_ awkward. "So, un, are you new around here? I haven't seen you 'round before, un."

Kira nodded cautiously, trying not to make eye contact with the blonde man. "Um, yeah."

The blonde blinked in surprise. "You moved here by yourself, un? What about your parents?" He asked. Kira freaked mentally.

"A-Ah, I-I'm really sorry, I have t-to go..." He backed up some more and headed to the checkout. The blonde kept after him. Kira walked quicker. As soon as Kira had paid for the chocolate bars and made sure that he had stuffed his wallet into the plastic bag holding his DVD and the chocolates, and that his keys were in his hand, he ran. He ran like the wind, like he was being chased by an axe-murderer.

The blonde shouted in surprise, and called a 'hey! Wait for me, un!' before he gave chase. Kira ran as fast as his legs could carry him through the single level complex, skidding around corners and dodging people, his sneakers squeaking loudly. He burst out of the entrance that he had walked into earlier; dashed past the gang he'd spotted earlier, and sprinted straight to his jeep. He leapt into the driver's seat as soon as he had his car unlocked.

Jamming his finger onto one of the buttons on the door, the automatic locks clicked into place. The teen didn't feel any more at ease. Forgetting his seatbelt in his rush, he shoved the gear stick into reverse, then into first gear, then second, then third, and finally fourth as he made his getaway.

Rolling to a stop at a red light a few blocks away from the shopping centre, Kira plugged his seatbelt in and breathed a sigh of relief. He tilted his head back against the headrest and thought about the creepy blonde who just asked...too many questions. He wasn't used to anyone being so...forward – Kari was the exception to that rule. So when that guy had squeezed him around the hips, Kira'd just had to bolt. He didn't want to stay and find out if he'd've been a victim of rape, or worse. He shuddered at the thought.

Okay, maybe that was a little paranoid, but he hadn't lived in Konoha for over ten years now. Still, you couldn't be too careful in a city you remembered next to nothing about. With those thoughts, as well as thoughts of the strange blonde whizzing through his brain, he drove back to Kurenai's, and decided he'd think some things over on his own for a while. He was sure Kari wouldn't mind. Especially since he felt so shaken up from that creepy, weird encounter.

Kira parked his car in what he now considered as his 'usual spot' outside Kurenai's place. He sat inside his car for a moment, regaining his composure. Once he felt like he was ready to go back into the house, he grabbed his shopping and locked his car behind him.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

I looked up at the door about half an hour after Kira had left. Kiba was leaning against the doorframe, a grin on his face. I smiled and waved at him in greeting, putting the pencil and score paper on the bed behind me.

"Hey animal lover." I greeted teasingly, poking my tongue out at him when he mock glared at me.

"What are you two up to in here?" He asked, coming over to the bed and sitting down beside me. He reached behind me and picked up the keyboard score I'd been working on for the past half hour. I shrugged at Kiba's question.

"Sasuke's writing a new song and I'm adding a keyboard score to one of your older songs." Kiba handed my score back to me, a _very_ impressed look on his face.

"Nice, I can't wait to hear it." Kiba murmured. Hikari grinned at him, before returning her attention to her not-quite-finished score.

"So, Naruto here yet?" Kiba asked us. Sasuke shook his head.

"Trust me, if the dobe was already here, you would've heard him from a mile away. Trust me."

Kiba chuckled, nodding his head in agreement. "That is true. Actually, the question is whether we would've heard him or his music blasting car first." I giggled that time.

"Is Naruto really _that_ loud?" I asked, an amused smile on my face. Kiba and Sasuke nodded solemnly.

"Really." Sasuke murmured, turning back to his new song.

"That's one of the reasons Sasuke's constantly calling him 'the dobe'." Kiba explained. I nodded in understanding. That did kinda make sense now. I blinked when I heard the deep thumping of bass beating out what sounded like a rock song. I got up off Sasuke's bed and went to look out of his bedroom window, which faced the street.

"Uh, boys, would _that_ be him?" I asked, pointing out the window as a bright orange ford falcon ute pulled up in front of Sasuke's place behind a black and red Harley, which I guessed belonged to Kiba. I turned back to the boys to see that they were both nodding their heads, without even having to look out the window.

"Yep." Kiba answered, popping the 'p'. I shook my head bemusedly, watching as Naruto got out of his car, guitar case and amp in hand. Not two minutes later, all three of us could clearly hear him announcing his presence downstairs. I sighed in slight annoyance. Well, the boys weren't wrong about Naruto at all. Then again, I suppose that was expected, considering they've known each other for years. It only took another thirty seconds for Naruto to bound up the stairs and throw Sasuke's bedroom door open. I giggled when Sasuke's eyebrow twitched. I watched as he calmly put his pencil down on the bed, shut his notebook, stood from the bed, and walked over to Naruto.

"Dobe, how many times have I told you before?" He asked quietly, cracking his knuckles. Naruto gulped at the menacing gleam in his eyes.

"Uh, told me what, Teme?" Naruto asked in a stammer. I giggled even harder as Sasuke whacked Naruto over the head with his clenched fist.

"STOP THROWING MY BEDROOM DOOR OPEN LIKE THAT! DO YOU _WANT_ TO PUT A HOLE IN MY WALL?!" Kiba and I were both in hysterics by this time. Sasuke yelling at a cowering Naruto was just too much for me.

Sasuke stopped being menacing, turning and raising an eyebrow at me and Kiba. Naruto just blinked at us in confusion. I was clutching my stomach and had tears in my eyes from how much it was hurting to laugh, Kiba, however, was rolling around on Sasuke's bedroom floor. The other two boys continued to stare at us until we eventually calmed down. Sasuke raised an eyebrow at us again.

"Can we go practice the new and improved songs now?" He asked, slightly impetuous. I nodded, a wide grin on my face. Kiba chuckled and nodded. Naruto hauled Kiba up off of the floor. Once Kiba was standing, he dusted his pants off. I blinked in surprise when I noticed that there was a hand in front of my face. I looked up the length of the arm to see Sasuke attached to the arm. I smiled at him and took his hand. I hadn't even noticed that I'd ended up on the floor like Kiba had.

Sasuke pulled me to my feet gently; then grabbed the paper I had written and his notebook. He walked out of his bedroom, leading the way downstairs, then through a door into a rather large garage.

There were two cars parked in the front half of the garage, the back half had a drum kit, an amp, a stand of guitars, two keyboards, and Naruto's guitar case and amp. There was also a couple of couches and a mini fridge. Sasuke went over to the guitar rack, picked up a sleek, black guitar and plugged it into one of the amps. Then he looked up at me.

"Hey, you know how to make those techno sounds with a keyboard, right?" He asked. I nodded in answer. He nodded. "Good, because that's what I've been thinking was missing with that song you fixed up earlier." I nodded and wandered over to the keyboards, grabbing my score from Sasuke as I passed. I put the score on the stand on top of one of the keyboards, turned both on, and fiddled with the settings, playing a few notes of the score until I found the sound that I was looking for. I looked up at Sasuke, who had finished tuning his guitar and was watching me fiddle with the keyboards. I played a few bars, stopping when I got a nod of approval from him.

"Alright, let's start with the one Hikari added a keyboard score to." The boys got into position, and Kiba clapped his drumsticks together to count me in. I started the prelude, watching the boys tap their feet as Sasuke joined in on guitar, and Naruto on bass, before Sasuke started singing. "_Tired of being what you want me to be, feeling so faithless, lost under the surface. Don't know what you're expecting of me, put under the pressure, of walking in your shoes..._"

As I kept playing, I couldn't help but be mesmerised by Sasuke.

He had an _amazing_ voice. He could hit every note perfectly within his vocal range, which blew me away. Straight A student, fantastic voice, was there anything he _couldn't_ do? My guess was no, probably not. We finished the song a couple minutes later. Naruto and Kiba had identical grins on their faces, and Sasuke had a pleased smirk on his face.

"That was _awesome!_ Believe it!" Naruto cheered, jumping up and down in his excitement. Naruto turned to me, stars in his eyes. "I _knew_you were gonna be our secret weapon, 'Kari! I just _knew_ it!" I giggled, shaking my head at Naruto's antics. Kiba and Naruto continued to chatter about how good the music sounded that time around as Sasuke wandered over to a printer I hadn't noticed before. He stuck his notebook into the scanner bed and pushed one of the buttons.

The printer hummed into life, and he came back a couple minutes later, handing us each a sheet of paper which I noticed had the new song he'd been writing on it.

"Now that we've _finally_ got the sound we want for that song, let's try this one." Sasuke came over to me, pencil in hand. "Hikari, do you think you'll be okay with singing," Sasuke bracketed some lines of the song. "those parts? Naruto can do the rest of the backup pieces if you're not comfortable with it." I swallowed the lump in my throat nervously.

"I can try." I answered. Sasuke nodded and went back to his position, as well as the boys. Kiba clapped his drumsticks together again, and I started the keyboard score, and a beat later I was singing, well, sort of.

"_The wound heals but it never does, that's 'cause you at war with love, you at war with love...(yeah)"_. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief as Sasuke came in on the same beat I finished.

"_These battle scars, don't look like they're fadin', don't look like they're ever goin away, they ain't ever gonna change, these battle..."_ Naruto came in rapping at this point.

"_Never let a war ruin me, but I feel like ruins ruin me, arrow holes that never close from Cupid on a shootin' spree..."_

_**PAGEBREAK**_

We practiced for an hour before the boys had had enough. Soon after we'd finished for the afternoon, Kiba and Naruto packed up and left for their homes. I stayed in the position I'd been in for the last few minutes – sprawled over one of the extremely comfortable, plush couches near the band's equipment in the garage.

"You guys are good." I murmured. Sasuke grunted in answer from his position at the mini fridge. I sat up, raising an eyebrow at him as he came back over to the couches, sitting at the end of the couch I was lying on. He passed a bottle of water to me, and I took it with a murmured thanks. I took a few sips, before recapping the bottle and looking at him again. "I mean it. If you guys'd already had a keyboardist, you definitely wouldn't have needed me at all."

Sasuke grunted again, and I rolled my eyes at him good naturedly, poking his shoulder for the second time today. He shot a mock glare in my direction, and I just smiled innocently at him. I yawned, stretching my arms above my head. I blinked and looked down at my watch to see that it was nearly six o'clock. Rolling off of the couch, I stood and stretched my arms above me again.

"Well, I should head back over to Kurenai's. She's probably wondering where I am by now." Sasuke stood as well, and lead me back out to the front door. I smiled at him and waved good bye as he closed the front door behind me, before making the very short walk back to Kurenai's place. I thought back on the day I'd had and couldn't help but let my lips curl into a small smile.

Hopefully the next year would go as well as today had.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

_**Author's Note: Well, there's chapter six! And my first year of university is nearly officially at an end! Wewt! Haha, anyway. I figured I'd post this chapter under "Untitled" first, since I have to re-upload the last six chapter documents before I can repost the story with its new title (that would be "Never Letting You Go" for those of you who didn't read my massive author's note last chapter).**_

_**So, from this day forward, all chapter updates for this story will be under "Never Letting You Go". I'll leave the story up as "Untitled" for a month or two before I remove it, so you lovely reader's know to redirect yourselves. I may post a chapter update under "Untitled with the link to the prologue of "Never Letting You Go" eventually...either that or I'll just remove "Untitled"...anywhoot, I hope ya'll enjoyed reading this chapter update, and I'll see you all again in chapter seven of "Never Letting You Go"!**_

_**I should also take the time to mention that the lyrics used in this chapter are in no way mine. The songs, in order are Numb, by Linkin Park, and Battle Scars, by Guy Sebastion featuring Lupe Fiasco. Again, not mine, so don't accuse me of stealing.**_

_**Kudos~**_

_**Beta'd by HollyEmpire00**_


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven – An Interesting Day**

After the first week of school was out of the way, as well as the first few band practices, the weekend had finally arrived. I breathed in deeply as I woke up that particular Saturday morning, blinking as I took in the warm sunlight streaming in through my bedroom window. I groaned and rolled onto my side, facing away from the window as I slowly rejoined the land of the wakeful. Once I felt like I was awake enough, I got out of bed, pausing to stretch for a moment before wandering over to the door leading into the bathroom I shared with Kira. I went through the usual morning routine, before I wandered through the other door and into my brother's room.

I couldn't help the evil grin that spread across my face when I saw Kira sprawled across the middle of his double bed on his tummy in the half darkness of his room. I backed up a few steps, before running the short distance to the bed, before I leapt into the air and landed with an 'oomph' next to my brother. He gave a startled snort, before cracking one eye open to glare at me. I smiled innocently in return.

"Aren't you supposed to _not_ be a morning person?" Kira grumbled, burying his face into his pillow. I giggled and reached over to ruffle his hair.

"I had a good sleep last night and I'm in a good mood today. It's Saturday. You _know_ you're coming to check out the shopping centre with me, right?" Kira grunted in response, reaching a hand up until he found my arm. He proceeded to grope my arm, then my face.

"Remind me where your 'off' button is again?" He mumbled into his pillow. I grinned and poked the palm of his hand.

"Don't have one." I answered cheerfully. I paused for a moment, wondering why I was feeling as cheerful as I did. "Okay, I'm _never_ this cheerful." I murmured, a blank look on my face. Kira groaned.

"Which was _why_ I was looking for the 'off' button." He grumbled. I poked his bare shoulder blade in response.

"Think of it this way – you get yourself out of bed and ready to go out to the shopping centre, and there'll be a piping hot mug of that disgusting drink you enjoy so much. Now, what is it called again?" Kira actually moaned.

"Mmm...coffee...alright, I'm awake." I laughed as I got up from my brother's bed and left his room they way I'd come in to get dressed for the day. Once I was ready to go in a pair of jeans and a nice top, I tromped downstairs, electric blue converse in hand.

I was greeted in the kitchen by Kurenai, a dressing gown wrapped around her, fluffy white slippers on her feet, hair ruffled, coffee mug in hand. She was taking delicate sips from the steaming mug in her hands, looking out the kitchen window. She turned to look at me as I walked in.

"Going somewhere today?" She asked as I pulled two mugs out of one of the cabinets, spooning instant coffee into one and putting a tea bag into the other. I nodded as I made tea for myself and coffee for Kira.

"I'm dragging Kira out of bed to go check out the shopping centre." Kurenai nodded.

"How long do you think the both of you will be out for?" I shrugged in answer.

"Not sure, probably until after lunch." Kurenai hummed in agreement.

"Alright, I have some marking I have to do today, but don't feel like you have to stay out all day because of me, okay?" I nodded.

"Sure." I answered.

"Do you need any money, in case you want to buy anything?" Kurenai asked. I thought for a moment.

"I don't think so. Kira and I are both on youth allowance, and we both have money saved from the jobs we had in the last town we were living in. I think we should be fine."

"Alright, as long as you don't spend everything you've saved today." I nodded.

"I won't, and I know Kira won't, since he doesn't really like shopping unless he has to." Speak of the devil. Kira shuffled into the kitchen, dressed, but still half asleep.

"Coffee." He mumbled, blinking sleepily. I set the ready mug of coffee in front of him as he slid onto one of the bar stools at the island, a contented smile coming to his face as he sipped at the coffee in the mug. I couldn't help but laugh at my brother sometimes. There were some days he got out of bed and was a total zombie until somebody gave him coffee of some description. Then other days you couldn't keep him down, it was just hilarious some mornings. Kurenai blinked at him in surprise. Since she was one of our teachers and normally left before we woke up on weekday mornings, this was the first time she'd seen Kira like this. Kurenai looked over at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Is he always like this in the mornings?" She asked me, quite seriously. I shook my head, still chuckling a little.

"He's only like this in the mornings about seventy-five percent of the time. The other twenty-five percent he wakes up and does a complete one-eighty to this morning personality." I sipped at my black tea happily. "When he's like this, coffee is the only thing that'll wake him up completely." Kurenai turned her raised eyebrow on my brother, who was sipping at his coffee quite contentedly.

Once we were done with breakfast, I pried the now empty coffee mug from Kira's hands and washed it out. Kira pouted at me, arms crossed over his chest. I grinned innocently at him.

"C'mon bro, we're taking my car." I ruffled his hair as I walked past him, grabbing my keys from the key hook as I neared the front door. Kira followed, grumbling, behind me.

"Can't we take my car? Yours is like a pregnant roller skate!" Kira whined. I turned to fix him with a mock glare.

"You got a problem with my car, buster?" Kira held his hands up in surrender.

"Other than the fact that it's tiny, no, I don't." I elbowed Kira in the side as we made our way over to my car.

"Oh, get over it, you big baby." I teased lightly, sliding into the driver's seat. Kira grumbled as he waited while I reached over an unlocked the passenger door for him. I turned the car on, flipping through radio stations for a moment until I found a song we both liked, before I shifted the car into first gear and headed for town.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

I pulled up as close to the shopping centre as I could get when we got there. I noticed Kira get a little tense as we walked by a group of thugs in matching leather jackets hanging around outside the centre. I raised an eyebrow at my brother, but didn't mention it. He seemed to relax once we were inside, so I let it go.

"Alright," I murmured to myself as I looked around me at the different shops that were in view. "Okay, so we came in near an ice cream shop." I mumbled to myself, before I grabbed my brother's wrist and tugged him along behind me and further into the complex.

"So, where should we go first?" I asked him as I looked around. Kira simply shrugged.

"You're the one that dragged me here, you tell me." I shook my head at my moody brother before leading him over to a department store. They always had good DVDs and games for cheap. Sometimes they had good clothes too, but I wasn't too worried about clothes at the moment. I was on the hunt for season five of Criminal Minds on DVD. Kira stopped to take a look at the books while I continued through to the DVDs, browsing through the shelves, until I found the DVDs I was looking for. I grinned as I scanned it at a little price check machine attached to the shelves.

"Wow, thirty bucks, that's half the price they're selling Criminal Minds for at Sanity." I looked over at the nearby book section, a little worried when I couldn't immediately see my tall, lanky brother. I headed over to the book shelves, wandering through them until I found Kira sitting cross legged on the floor with a book in his hands. I couldn't help but shake my head bemusedly at him.

I walked around the shelves so that I was behind him and tapped him on the shoulder, peering around his head to glance down at the pages of the open book.

"Whatcha reading bro?" I asked him as I looked at the pages.

"The Hobbit." He answered, before closing the book and standing up again. "It's the only book from the Lord of The Rings series that I don't have." I nodded and glanced around at the shelves surrounding me, picking up a novel that caught my interest and flipping it over to read the blurb.

"Just when you think James Patterson couldn't pump out another book, I murmured, turning the book over in my hands again to reread the title. Kira peered at the title over my shoulder.

"The Murder of King Tut? Get it. I'll read it when you finish it." I nodded, clutching it and Criminal minds in my hand as we both continued to wander the shop for a while before making our way to the checkout.

After we'd paid for the things we wanted, we wandered into a nearby coffee shop for a break from shopping. Kira wanted a coffee and I wanted a milkshake. Imagine our surprise when our ears were suddenly bombarded by the sounds of our own names. I yelped and jumped about a foot into the air, and Kira flinched. We both turned to see Naruto was the culprit, and he was surrounded by the laughing crowd of our new friend circle, minus Ino, Hinata, and Kiba, who were working behind the counter. I mock-threateningly waved my fist in the air at Naruto, but I couldn't help but grin. That boy's smile was contagious. Kira and I wandered over to their table and we slide into the booth on either side of the table. I ended up next to Sasuke and Kira next to Naruto.

"So this is the weekend hangout?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at Naruto, who nodded vigorously. Kiba wandered over to get mine and Kira's orders, before my brother and I fell into easy conversations with our new friends. I was quite happy sitting with friends and sipping at my chocolate milkshake, at least until I noticed Kira visibly stiffen, his eyes locked on the doorway into the coffee shop. I waved a hand in front of my brother's face, and he blinked before turning to look at me, still visibly worried. "What's wrong, Kira?" I asked him. Kira gestured to the doorway with his head, and I turned as much as could be considered subtle to see two young men in the doorway of the coffee shop.

The taller of the two had pinkish-red hair, and eyes that were about the same colour. The other had blonde hair that looked to be about shoulder length, kept tied up in a half pony-tail, with a thick fringe that fell over his left eye. His visible right eye was a vivid blue. The red-head wore baggy jeans, while the blonde seemed to prefer skinny jeans. Both of them wore plain white t-shirts and black leather jackets. The red-head screamed 'bad news' from the way he walked – like he owned the place and everyone in it. The blonde on the other hand didn't seem to be anywhere near as bad. I got more of a 'follower' vibe from him. That still didn't distract from the fact that the both of them were running with the wrong crowd. I turned back to my brother and raised an eyebrow at him. Kira leaned in closed towards me.

"The blonde one," He began in a mutter. "I ran into him the other day, while you were having your first band practice. He, um." Kira's cheeks flared pink, and he turned his eyes down towards the table.

"He didn't grope you or anything, did he, bro?" Kira shook his head in answer.

"No. He just, kinda came onto me. He didn't _do_ anything that he shouldn't have. He was just asking too many personal questions, that's all." I nodded after a moment, having another sip of my milkshake. Kira kept a cautious eye on his apparent admirer, and, after a few minutes of nothing happening, Kira went completely rigid. I let go of my milkshake and turned my head to look over my shoulder, but stopped short when I noticed the redhead and Kira's admirer were standing in front of our table. Kira shrank back into his seat nervously.

"Well, look who it is, Deidara. It's the baby Uchiha and his posse." Redhead sneered. I heard knuckles cracking beside me and turned to see that Sasuke had his tight clenched fists in his lap. I turned back to look at redhead and blondie, raising an eyebrow at the completely unfriendly sneer on redhead's face.

"Can we help you with something?" I asked dubiously. It was at the point when I actually spoke when redhead seemed to notice that my brother and I were at the table. He looked me up and down once, did the same to my brother, then turned back to face me with a sneer.

"Fresh meat, huh? You'll soon find out who runs this town. I guarantee you that it isn't the baby face you're sitting next to, girly." I raised an eyebrow at him in response.

"Awesome. Too bad I'd rather finish my milkshake than listen to your raving." Redhead's eyes filled with malice. He leaned down, getting in my face until his nose was inches from mine. We glared at each other for a moment, before he sneered at me again.

"You'd better watch your back girly, otherwise, you just might not live to see the end of the year."

"That a threat, pretty-boy?" I retorted. Redhead smirked, straightening back up to his full height.

"No, it's a promise. Let's go, Deidara. We've wasted enough time here." As they left, blondie turned back to face us for a second, a silent apology in his eyes. Then he was gone, following after redhead. I looked over at my brother, who was sitting in his seat, wide eyed, and pale as a ghost.

"Kira?" I murmured, reaching out to touch my brother's shoulder. Kira flinched, shook his head, then turned his worried, puppy-like eyes on me.

"He isn't really gonna do anything to you, is he Kari?" Kira asked me in almost a whimper, a stricken look on his face. I stammered, not knowing how to answer my brother. Suddenly, Naruto chortled, throwing an arm around my brother's shoulder.

"Don't you worry about Kari, Kira. None of us are gonna let anything happen to her, I promise." Naruto grinned at Kira, and I couldn't help but smile when Kira offered a tentative smile in return. If nothing else, Naruto was definitely good for Kira. Then again, both Kira and I needed something positive to happen in our lives. Now that we were back in our hometown, maybe, just maybe, that could happen.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

Kira was still a little shaken up from the coffee shop incident, and refused to leave my side for a little while afterwards. We left with Naruto, Sasuke and Kiba in tow as well, since we'd be going back to Sasuke's a little later for another band practice. We goofed off around the shopping centre for a little while, just mainly looking at everything there was to see. Kira slowly started to unwind and relax a little the longer we goofed off. Eventually we left the shopping centre, Sasuke leading the way back with Naruto and Kiba in the back seat, since they car pooled with him to the shopping centre.

I pulled my car up outside Kurenai's place and walked across the road to Sasuke's place as the boys all piled out of Sasuke's car. Kira followed me across the road, and we both followed the guys into the house and through to the garage. Kiba and Naruto went home as soon as we'd practiced enough for the day. I was standing at the keyboards and pushing my photocopies of Sasuke's songs into a folder. Kira was admiring Sasuke's guitar collection, and Sasuke had disappeared somewhere into the Uchiha's spacious home. I closed my folder when I was done and tucked it under my arm, leading Kira back out of the garage and to the front door. I turned to my brother and smiled at him.

"Kira, do you want to go back over to Kurenai's? I'll be right behind you, I just have to ask Sasuke about a couple of the songs we practiced today." Kira nodded, and smiled tentatively at me, before opening the door and wandering back across the road. I closed the door behind my brother and sighed worriedly. Kira was still panicked about what happened at the shopping centre today, I could tell. I traipsed slowly up the stairs, thinking that Sasuke was probably in his room, which was where I found him, lying back on his bed, his arms tucked between his head and the pillows. He opened his eyes when I knocked gently on the door frame. I smiled at him.

"I just wanted to let you know that I'm off now. When do you want us back for practice again?" I asked him. He sat silently for a moment, before sitting up.

"Um, probably after school on Tuesday, since the boys and I have training on Mondays." I raised an eyebrow at that.

"Training?" I asked curiously. For a moment I thought Sasuke's cheeks had gone pink as he looked at the floor, studying it intently for a moment.

"Yeah. We're on the swimming team."

"Oh, that's pretty cool." I answered, smiling at him. Sasuke nodded, and stayed quiet for a moment. He looked up at me after a little while though.

"Hey, um, would you like to come and hang out with me some time?" My cheeks flared bright red.

"Um, as friends. Or...?" I trailed off. Now it was my turn to study the floor.

"Um, yeah." Sasuke stammered. "I have an Xbox. We could just chill and play games, watch a couple movies." I looked up as Sasuke shrugged. Still blushing, I thought about it for a moment, before nodding in agreement.

"Sure. I'd like that." Sasuke looked up at me and smiled in what looked like relief.

"Cool." He murmured. "So, um, see you around?" He asked. I nodded and smiled, waving my good bye before I turned and walked out of the house and across the road.

As I got ready for bed that night, I wondered why Sasuke would ask to hang out with me. Did he really only want to hang out as friends, or had he been about to ask about something else? I couldn't wrap my muddled brain around it, and decided not to worry too much about it for now. After dinner, I fell straight into my bed, feeling totally exhausted.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

_**Author's Note: Well, there's chapter seven! I'm feeling generous enough to post the draft version of this chapter as my late Christmas gift to those of you who like reading this particular work of mine, mostly because HollyEmpire doesn't really have access to the internet right now. So, I'm posting the un-beta'd version, which I'll also be emailing to Holly. Once it's been checked over, I'll repost the beta'd chapter, so make sure if you're a frequent reader that you read both versions of this chapter in case anything is cut out or changed completely.**_

_**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter. :3 Sasuke's asked Hikari to hang out with him! Get excited kiddly-winks! That means there's both romance and drama on the way. And what about Kira's first encounter with Deidara, huh? I feel like I should give spoilers here, but I know Holly will kill me xP.**_

_**If anybody has any questions about this or any other chapter, feel free to ask, and to let me know what you think of the story so far. Like I've mentioned before, I'm trying harder to lead up to the romance a bit slower than is normal, and I'm trying not to be so cliché about the romance either, which I've tended to do on a large scale in the past xP.**_

_**Finally, a happy and safe 2013 to all my readers! I hope you're all enjoying your holidays :) **_

_**All the best,**_

_** 08794**_

_**Un-beta'd**_


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight – English Assignment**

I dropped into a random desk in one of the middle rows of my English classroom on Monday morning, rubbing my eyes and yawning tiredly. I slumped forward and buried my head in my arms to warm my cheeks a little. It was unusually cool this morning, and my cheeks and fingertips were colder than usual. I looked up from the warmth of my arms at the sound of somebody sitting down next to me at the end of the row I was sitting in. I raised my eyebrow when I noticed that it was one Sasuke Uchiha taking the seat next to me.

I watched as he set his bag on the desk in front of him and leaned back into his chair, letting his arms hang lax at his sides. He looked over at me after a moment and raised an eyebrow of his own in my direction. I mock-glared at him.

"What?" I mumbled questioningly, burying my face back in my arms.

"Get enough sleep last night?" He asked with what almost sounded like amusement in his voice. I looked back up again to give him another mock-glare.

"As a matter of fact, no. My brother decided that last night was a good night to eat all the sweets he had in his possession, on top of three cups of coffee." Sasuke's smirk could've almost been a smile. I swear I even heard a chuckle.

"Does he do that often?"

I simply groaned in response, and definitely heard a chuckle this time. It was then that my brother walked into the classroom and sat down on my other side. "Good morning." He said cheerfully. Sasuke nodded his acknowledgement, and I groaned louder. Kira blinked in surprise and looked down at me.

"What? What'd I do?"

I looked up at my brother and glared at him. "Think, genius. What'd you do last night?" My brother looked up at the ceiling in thought for a few moments. He looked back at me, a completely innocent look on his face.

"I drank coffee." I sharpened my glare at him.

"You also ate enough sweets to make you sugar-high and kept me awake half the night." Kira blinked again.

"I did?"

"_Ugh!_" I thumped my head down onto the desk.

"Alright class! Settle down please!" The teacher called as he walked into the classroom. He had silvery-grey hair similar to Kakashi-sensei's, only longer and tied back in a pony tail at the nape of his neck. He also wore glasses. He looked at my brother and I for a moment as he made his way to the front of the room. I slowly sat up, leaving my arms crossed on the desk in front of me.

"For those of you who don't know me or don't remember, my name is Kabuto, and I'm your English teacher. Now, you should all have your copies of 'Much Ado about Nothing' and 'Twelfth Night' with you today. Let's start with 'Much Ado About Nothing'..."

The lesson itself went on relatively uneventfully, at least until the last ten minutes of the lesson. Kabuto-sensei closed his book and leaned against his desk at the front of the room.

"Now, as most of you know, you all have an assignment due for this class soon. What most of you _don't_ know, is that this assignment is a partner project." Some murmurs started up among the classroom, the loudest comments belonging to Naruto, who was sitting on Kira's other side. Kabuto-sensei waited for quiet before continuing his explanation. "Now, to make things, hopefully, easier on all of you, the person you're currently sitting next to will be your partner for this assignment. Do I make myself clear, Sakura and Karin?" I looked over my shoulder to see that the aforementioned duo were glaring at my back again. I turned back to the front of the room and rolled my eyes. It was pretty easy to figure out why they were glaring at me specifically. Because Naruto was next to my brother, and I was next to Sasuke. "As for the assignment itself, I want you in your pairs to write an essay comparing two of Shakespeare's plays. One of them has to be either 'Much Ado' or 'Twelfth Night', and you and your partner will have to pick out another play of your choice. I don't want this assignment being about one of his plays and one of his sonnets. I don't want to see _any_ sonnets in your assignments. Two plays, no exceptions. I hope I'm making myself clear on that." Kabuto-sensei picked up a stack of papers sitting on the desk next to him and sat them on the front row of desks closest to him.

"I want one person from each pair to come out and grab one of these before the end of the class and go through and highlight some potential relevant information for your assignment. You have until the end of the lesson to get started, than after that it's up to you and your partner to get the assignment finished. You have until next Friday to get everything finished and handed in." Here a chorus of groans sounded. I raised an eyebrow at that. Groaning over an English assignment? Bunch of sooks. I sighed and pushed out of my seat to go and grab a handout.

Back in my seat, I pulled a highlighter and pen out of my pencil case, and flipped the stapled together papers over between myself and Sasuke. I tapped my pen against my lips for a moment, before scribbling down names of Shakespearean plays I could remember.

"'Hamlet', 'Midsummer Night's Dream', 'Macbeth', 'Romeo & Juliet', 'The Taming of The Shrew', 'The Merchant of Venice', 'Othello'." I mumbled as I scrawled the titles down on the back of the handout. Sasuke leaned closer and looked at the list of titles.

"There's also 'King Lear', 'Antony and Cleopatra', 'Pericles', and 'Julius Caesar'." Sasuke murmured. I nodded and wrote those titles down as well.

"Alright," I murmured, tilting my head up to look at him, tapping the covers of 'Twelfth Night' and 'Much Ado' in front of me. "I personally think that 'Much Ado' would be easier to work with for this since we only have until the end of next week. What about you?" Sasuke looked at the books and the other titles for a moment, before he tapped 'Midsummer Night's Dream' where the title was written down in my scrawl.

"If you think we should use 'Much Ado', I'm thinking that 'Midsummer Night's Dream' would be a good comparison for similarities," He shifted his finger and tapped 'Macbeth', "but if it's a contrast we should angle for, I think Macbeth would be a good idea." I nodded and hummed in agreement.

"I like the contrasting, personally. Comparing two plays about romance probably wouldn't get us quite as many marks as we can get." Sasuke nodded as I highlighted 'Macbeth' on our list before turning the handout back over and skimming through the pages for a moment before handing it and my highlighter over to Sasuke.

"If you find anything you think we could use, highlight it and we can go over things after school, yeah?" Sasuke nodded.

"I'll come to your place?" I smiled and nodded in agreement.

"Sure, then after we get some work done we can head over to yours for band practice. Sasuke nodded, then the bell rang to signal the end of class. I gathered my books and slipped the handout into my English notebook before shuffling out of the classroom behind Sasuke and on to my next class.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

"I'm leaving." He declared into the candle lit room, his stare blank and cold. "I won't be a part of this any longer."

Silence followed, and after what felt like an eternity, the leader replied gravely. "Are...you sure you want to do this? You know you cannot simply leave us."

Nodding, the teen pulled off his jacket, letting it drop to the floor at his feet. "I'm sure; I have my own life to lead. And I won't be your puppet anymore." With that, he turned with a swish of dark hair and left the room, his nearly inaudible footsteps fading down the corridor.

In the glow of the candlelight, the leader sat behind his desk, his chin resting on his interlocked fingers. Turning his eyes towards the shadows, one of his other subordinates made himself known in the darkened office. He stepped out from the corner of the room where he had been hiding, standing behind his boss, arms lax at his sides.

"I knew this day would come...I had hoped it would not be so soon, however. Make sure he keeps quiet. We can't have him saying anything."

The subordinate grinned manically.

"With pleasure, Boss."

_**PAGEBREAK**_

I pulled up in front of Kurenai's house, grabbed my bag from the passenger seat and walked into the house. I had enough time to raid the fridge for an apple and a couple bottles of water before Sasuke knocked on the door.

"Door's open!" I called, as I pulled the stem off the apple and bit into it. I scooped my bag off the floor and walked back into the hallway, where Sasuke was kicking off his shoes. When he straightened up, I motioned for him to follow me upstairs with my head, taking another bite out of my apple and tossing him the other bottle of water, which he caught easily as he followed me.

I nudged my bedroom door open with my foot and walked in, dropping my bag by my desk. I pulled out my swivel chair and sat down, turning to face Sasuke. "Welcome to my Hobbit Hole." I grinned at him laughingly before taking another bit out of my apple. Sasuke raised an eyebrow at me.

"Lord of the Rings fan?" He dropped his bag next to mine and sat down on my bed. I nodded.

"I'm a Star Wars fan too." He chuckled.

"Who isn't?"

"Sakura and Karin?"

Sasuke thought about that for a second, then snorted in amusement. "You're probably right there."

I swung back and forth slightly in my chair for a moment, before reaching for my bag and grabbing the hand-out from the notebook I'd stashed it in, and turned to face my desk. I pulled my laptop screen up and turned it on, opening a blank word document once it had logged in and booted up.

"Alright, 'Much Ado' and 'Macbeth'. Where's a good place to start?" I asked him, as he got off my bed and came over to stand behind me, looking over my shoulder at my screen as I opened Google Chrome.

"Try the Konoha City Library website first. If we can find any copies of Macbeth or some research journals we have a starting point." I nodded my head, but then pointed to my bookshelf.

"I have a copy of 'Macbeth' over there." Sasuke raised an eyebrow, but went to my bookshelf and quickly found my worn copy of the book. He turned it over in his hands, looking at the cover and flipping through the pages.

"How many times have you read 'Macbeth'?" He asked as he read through the first few lines in act one scene one. I shrugged as I started a database search on the library website.

"Twice, I think. It actually belonged to my Mum. It's one of the few things I have from her." Sasuke stayed silent for a while after that as I ran a search for journal articles related to Shakespeare, 'Macbeth', and 'Much Ado'.

"Hikari, I-"

"If you're going to apologise, don't." I cut him off, and he looked at me with slightly wide eyes for a few seconds, then stayed silent after that, reading 'Macbeth' while I continued researching information for the assignment. At least that's what I thought he was doing. After about five minutes of silence, I looked up in surprise as a pair of warm, strong, pale arms wrapped around me, as a chin rested on my shoulder. I turned my head until I could see his face out of the corner of my eye. I sat still for a moment, before a small smile crossed my face, and reached up until one of my hands rested on one of his.

"Thanks, Sasuke." I murmured, leaning my head against his for a moment.

"Kari! Sasuke! HEEEEEEEY!" We both jumped, and Sasuke quickly let go of me. We both turned to look at the door as Naruto came bursting into my bedroom, with Kira following behind him. I raised an eyebrow at them, Sasuke just looked irritated.

"What is it, Naruto?" I asked bemusedly as Sasuke sat on my bed with his arms crossed over his chest.

"We need _HEEEELLLLLLP!_" Naruto whined childishly. I sighed, shaking my head and turning back to my search results, grabbing a little notepad I kept on my desk, as well as a pen, and started jotting down book titles, author initials and reference codes for the library.

"Sorry Naruto, but we haven't started writing our own essay yet. Besides that, we won't be able to help you overly much unless you're researching the same books we are." Naruto looked visibly deflated at that, and stood in the middle of my room, pouting with his arms crossed over his chest.

"You suck, Kari." He grumbled. I chuckled, and continued scribbling down information until I had enough references to put together a decent assignment. I turned to look at Sasuke and held the notepad up.

"Will we head for the library and see if we can find these?" Sasuke nodded and stood up, stretching for a moment before he grabbed his backpack and waited as I grabbed my things, including my laptop, and followed him downstairs to the front door. Kira and Naruto followed us to the door.

"_KARIIIIIIIIII_!" Naruto whined.

"See you at band practice Naruto." I called back, sliding into my car and leaning over to the passenger side to let Sasuke in.

"Won't you at least help _me_ with the assignment?" Kira asked, pulling his innocent act again. I got Sasuke to roll down his window and leaned over him to get a better look at Kira. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"After the stunt you pulled last night? Not until the next millennium." Kira pouted, and we left both boys grumbling on Kurenai's front lawn to head to the library.

_**PAGEBREAK**_

It was just on dark as he made his way home from Konoha University. After confronting his 'boss', he'd had to go straight to his classes for the day. After class, he'd stayed in one of the computer labs to get some assignments finished in the relative silence of the computer lab building, which was why he was only just making his way home now. Looking at his watch, he decided to cut the corner of a block out of his walk and made his way into one of the barely lit alleyways between the university and his home.

As he started down the length of the alley, he couldn't help the apprehensive feeling that churned in his gut; the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. He was almost to the other end of the alleyway when somebody stepped out from beneath a shadowy doorway. That somebody happened to be the man who, until earlier today, had been his 'partner'. He froze when he noticed the glinting knife blade in his ex-partner's hand. He watched as the man fiddled with the knife, twisting it this way and that between his fingers.

"What do you want?" He asked, sounding much bolder than he felt, and that was saying something considering his normally never fearless attitude. The other man chuckled, and stopped playing with the knife.

"Han't you worked it out yet? You should'a by now; ya suppose' ta be a prodigy after all." He chuckled again, as he stepped closer to the frozen teen. "Ya don't just tell da boss ya've had it 'n walk out. D'ere's only one way out." The other man had a maniacal grin on his face by this point. He couldn't move; his muscles were frozen. It was the first time he had ever felt true fear, and it was paralysing. It was also the one time that he wished that it hadn't happened. He watched warily as the other man stepped closer, and closer, until he was within striking distance of the teen.

"Dat way out?" He spoke again, bringing the knife up to the light for both of them to see. Then, his grin widened, as he grabbed the teen and lifted him from the ground by his shirt-front. "I's in a coffin!"

Then, blinding pain in his abdomen.

He had no idea how many times he was stabbed, but when he was finally thrown to the ground and the other man gone, he lay there for a moment, before painstakingly dragging himself by sheer strength of will to the mouth of the alley. If he could just make it that far, a passerby would see him, and then he could get help...

_**PAGEBREAK**_

_**Author's Note: I bet most of you have probably worked out who our stabbing victim is, huh? In any case, I shall give no details away until the next chapter, when all is revealed :3.**_

_**I would also like to take this time to apologise for my lack of updates, however, as I mentioned in my latest update of one of the earlier chapters of this fanfic, I am up to my ears in assignments, and the exam block isn't too far away either. That being said, I decided to at least get chapter 8 out of the factory before I immerse myself in the Aztecs, and Jekyll and Hyde, and behaviour management strategies. Thank you all for putting up with my erratic updates :). I look forward to writing chapter 9 for you all. I have a reprieve between my assignments and exam block, so I'll try and get chapter 9 pumped out then :)**_

_**Kudos,**_

_**Beta'd (My beta is FINALLY doing her job within a decent time frame again!)**_


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